Chasing the Rainbow
by LM
Summary: Before Dream Castle, before Dream Valley, but not before the Rainbow! ^_^
1. Prologue

_In the early days (now crumbling into myth,) when the world was young and cruel, a Rainbow pony was almost born. _

If the mighty banner of color had soared over the laboring mare one instant sooner, her child would have sported a flowing mane of deep pink, sun-gold, emerald, and summer-sky blue. Then from his first reed-thin cry, the others of the tribe would have fiercely protected the foal from every danger, knowing that he was destined to protect the ever-wandering herd with powerful magic. 

As it was, the colt resembled his father in every way (as is usual with ponies) and no one revered him. His parents coddled him and the herd gratefully tallied one more member, but without fanfare. He was, after all, just another pony. 

But destiny is a strange and shifting thing, and sometimes fate will not be cheated . . . 

  



	2. A Meeting of Minds

"Baby Nightglow!" 

The baby pony stirred, stuffing his head under his wing to block out the voice drowning out the birdsongs of the grey, mist-filled dawn. 

"Wake up, sleepyhead!" someone laughed, nudging him gently but insistently. One bright blue eye peered from under the dark purple feathers. "Aww, Mama . . ."

"C'mon, up!" Sunshine tapped a hoof in mock impatience as her son slowly drew himself to his hooves, stretching and yawning and shaking off a sheen of dew. "Daddy's not up yet," the colt observed, eyeing the larger version of himself still snoring softly in the grass. 

"Why don't you see if you can wake him up, honey?" Sunshine suggested. "I'm going to have a word with Azure." 

"Okay," Baby Nightglow agreed, wiggling with delight. He began shaking his father vigorously. "DADDY! TIME TO WAKE UP!" 

Baby Nightglow had barely managed to convince his father that it was indeed morning when Sunshine galloped back, nearly vibrating with excitement. "You won't believe what's happening! (Nightglow dear, you have grass stuck all over your left flank.) We're going to join with another herd!"

"We are?" Nightglow stared in amazement, rubbing a forehoof across his sleep-filled eyes. "Are you sure?"

"With _another herd?"_ Baby Nightglow added in an awed voice. From the depths of the past he had the hazy recollection--a memory of a memory--of meeting another herd at a river crossing. But they were merely brightly colored shadows dancing in his memory; the only ponies he had ever _known_ were the six in "his" herd. The prospect of meeting more of his kind was . . . dazzling! He swivelled his ears, intent on catching every bit of information.

"Azure got the news from her brother, and you know Tempest doesn't say things unless he's sure. Oh, Nightglow, isn't it wonderful?"

"Other ponies . . . I can hardly believe it!" Nightglow unfurled his wings in pleasure. "Sometimes it seems like we must be the only ones left, just left wandering, alone . . ."

"We're never alone when the Rainbow is near," Sunshine replied, automatically repeating the universal dogma of ponykind. "Or when _I'm_ near . . ." she added, fluttering her eyes and nuzzling her mate. 

"When will they get here?" Baby Nightglow broke in. "Are they here _now?"_ He reared, peering around the green meadow as his tiny wings fluttered in a purple flurry. 

"They should arrive in a few days," his mother said. "And Azure said she _thinks_ that they have a foal in the herd!"

Baby Nightglow whooped with joy, kicking up his heels. "Another foal!!! Another foal!!!" Flapping his immature wings frantically, he managed an unsteady but elated loop before crashing into the soft meadow grass. 

"Careful there, dragon!" laughed Nightglow, but the colt continued prancing with glee. Although his parents romped with him whenever they had a free moment (which wasn't often,) Baby Nightglow had always pined for another baby pony to play with. He wasn't picky; any foal would've done, filly or colt, unicorn or earthling or (best of all) another pegasus, like him. But ponies seldom conceived, and many foals died in childbirth. (And in such cases the mother usually died too; he vaguely remembered Acorn, a pretty grey mare who had died despite the best efforts of the herd unicorns. "I'm so sorry," one of them had told Flicker, Acorn's distraught mate. "There was nothing we could do. The foal was laid wrong . . .")

"Is it a colt or a filly?" he demanded excitedly, focusing on the present once more.

"Wait a few days and you'll find out, little one," laughed Sunshine, nuzzling him. "Now come on, we're going to start moving soon."

Baby Nightglow was sure he'd never be able to wait so long, but managed to forget the enigmatic "new herd" as the ponies fell into a regulated half-trot for the day's journey. Trailing after his parents in a _real_ trot (to correct for his shorter legs,) Baby Nightglow marveled at the precision of the herd's path. Normally they wandered in a gentle zigzag pattern, following the easiest terrain and occasionally even looping back to retread old ground; but with a concrete goal the herd leader, Evergold, could lead them in a straight line. The unfamiliar concept captivated the colt. "If we knew more about the land, we could _always_ go in a straight line when we wanted to get something!" he thought. He excitedly mentioned the idea to his father when the herd paused for a bite of sweet meadow flowers. 

"Fine idea, son!" Nightglow grinned. "But there's just one problem . . . how would a pony remember all this?" He swept his neck around, gesturing towards the stretching horizons. "And how could he tell other ponies about it?

"Well . . . well, they could . . . make lines out of . . . um . . . rocks. Yeah! Lines of rocks from place to place . . ."

"And what would happen when the predators figured out that they could get a nice pony meal by waiting by the rocks?"

The baby pony frowned. "Well, they'd have to have lots of unicorns along to help, I guess . . . maybe it isn't such a good idea after all," he added sadly.

Nightglow laughed. "Now, don't give up on it so fast, son. Just mull it over for a while and if you find a problem--why, think of a way to fix it! It's a wonderful idea." He nuzzled Baby Nightglow fondly. 

"How does Evergold know where the other ponies are?" Baby Nightglow asked.

"I don't know," the stallion admitted. 

"But I do!" Father and son turned toward the pretty teal pony who had just trotted over. Despite being an earthling, and thus lacking ability in magic--and even flight--Azure always seemed to know exactly what was going on. "She caught their scent at one of the pastures a few days ago-- you know how sharp Evei's nose is--so she sent Tempest to scan the area."

"So _that's_ where Temp was," Nightglow exclaimed. "I wondered . . ."

Azure nodded. "And he found them, too. So Evergold met with the other herd leader and they decided to combine the two herds. Safety in numbers, you know." 

"Is there really another foal?" Baby Nightglow demanded, his little wings all aflutter with anticipation.

"Mm-hm. I don't know what breed, though . . ."

But Baby Nightglow was already out of hearing, whooping as he rushed to tell his mother that there really WOULD be another baby pony joining the herd.

The elder Nightglow grinned at the antics of his foal. "Any unicorns in the new herd, Azure?" Unicorns were essential to the survival of any herd, able to fend off predators or heal wounds.

"Only two . . . the herd leader, Moonbeam, and one named Glimmer."

"So their leader is a unicorn . . ." Nightglow said thoughtfully. A slight frown creased his brow as he scanned the sunlit field where the herd rested. His gaze settled on the proud-stanced mare startling the minnows with her golden hooves as she took long draughts of cool water--vigilantly raising her head every few minutes as her eyes flicked back and forth alertly.

Azure followed his eyes and said nothing.

"A herd can have but one leader," Nightglow said at last.

"Yes," Azure answered softly. "Yes."

And they stood in silence for a long, long time in the dying sun of late afternoon.

~*~*~*~*~

Baby Nightglow sat up suddenly, waking with a start. In the east the morning sun, still hiding behind the hills, had just begun to stain the feathered clouds with the first rosy shades of dawn, though stars still clung defiantly to the western sky. The other ponies huddled together, sleeping peacefully . . . all except Evergold. Her silhouette was clear against the dew-soaked half-dawn as she gazed intently eastward.

The baby pony, too, turned towards the eastern hills; he blinked as the first dazzle of sunlight leapt over the horizon, dazzling his eyes. But he saw the dawn-dimmed shape gliding over the horizon far, far away--saw it spiraling effortlessly upward and upward, flying not like a swooping swallow, no, nor like a fluttering sparrow, but riding the air with a great sweeping of motionless wings, as the strong-soaring eagle flies . . . only eagles do not have flowing manes which whip in the sunlight . . . 

"A _pony!"_ Baby Nightglow breathed, trembling.

But no one he knew . . . 

~*~*~*~*~

Shadow awoke with a start. Someone was shouting, disturbing the calls of the morning birds. He rolled to his feet. Ah, the foal. Shouting enthusiastically into the ears of his parents, he observed, watching Nightglow trying to cover his ears with his hooves. Shouting about . . . other ponies? The unicorn turned eastward. So it was true . . . 

In a way, he had _known_ there were other ponies, _known_ that they would be combining with another herd. Evergold had said as much, hadn't she? And Tempest as well. But it was one thing to hear about them; it was quite another to watch them thundering over the horizon, strong and proud and free. Before he had _known._ Now he _believed._

He studied the equines with care as they drew nearer, though they occasionally sank out of sight behind a rolling hill, only to leap suddenly into view again, the morning sunlight now dazzling behind them. 

It was a small herd; the dramatic entrance couldn't hide _that,_ Shadow thought pragmatically. Only four--no, five--ponies. Granted, two of them were unicorns, but still . . . he couldn't help wondering why Evergold had agreed to the alliance. There would be five more mouths to feed and the earthlings and the pegasus--especially the pegasus--would have to be protected from predators. ("Though it will be nice to meet the unicorn mares," Shadow added mentally.) But unicorns aside, why _had_ Evergold agreed--?

The sixth pony gained the crest of the hill--a tiny pink pegasus whose legs pumped ridiculously as she frantically fluttered her tiny wings, vainly trying to keep up with the adults.

And her tail streamed behind her like a miniature rainbow while her mane cascaded over her neck in a cataract of color.

Shadow's eyes widened. 

"That," he said softly, "explains everything."

~*~*~*~*~

Evergold's herd eagerly crowded around the new arrivals with wisps of dust settling around them as they stamped their hooves in greeting. Two pastel earthlings stood beside the herd leader, a soft white unicorn. A second unicorn tossed her head beside a pink pegasus mare. But one by one, every head turned towards the foal.

Tempest and Azure gazed at the pegasus filly in open amazement. Nightglow and Sunshine locked their gazes on the rainbow-haired baby as though her colorful mane had mesmerized them. Baby Nightglow stared.

Deep pink. Sun-gold. Emerald. Summer-sky blue. 

What kind of pony was this?

The pink baby seemed unperturbed by the attention, calmly gazing up at the ring of faces surrounding her, then flicking her eyes towards Baby Nightglow. "Who are _you?"_ she asked.

The dark purple foal drew back behind his mother's legs, suddenly shy.

"His name is Baby Nightglow," Sunshine answered with a smile. Nightglow grinned down at the smaller version of himself peering cautiously around one of Sunshine's yellow legs.

"I'm Baby Featherfall," the pink baby announced. "I'm tired," she added with a yawn, turning towards her mother. The pink mare nuzzled her fondly, protectively stretching a wing over her. "Run along and get some sleep, then. I'm sure Baby Nightglow can show you somewhere nice and quiet." The white-maned pegasus exchanged grins with Sunshine as Baby Nightglow drew back in embarrassment. "You'd better follow me," he mumbled at last, scuffing his hooves against the ground. 

He quickly turned away from the adults, trotting away without a glance behind to see if the filly was following. But as he reached the rocky bank of the river, he could hear her hooves clattering against the stones. As she lowered her head for a cool drink of water, he cautiously glanced at her from under his fringe of blue forelock.

"Who are the ponies in your herd?" Baby Nightglow said at last.

Baby Featherfall thoughtfully licked a few droplets of water from her muzzle. "Moonbeam leads us. She's a unicorn."

"The white one," Baby Nightglow guessed. 

The filly nodded. "Uh huh, and the one staring at that unicorn from your herd is Glimmer."

"That's Shadow," Baby Nightglow replied, gazing towards Glimmer, a silvery-gray unicorn mare who was indeed shyly gazing at handsome black Shadow. "What about those earthlings?"

"Droplet and Lilac," said the other baby. 

"And your mother is the pegasus." 

It was a statement, not a question, and Baby Featherfall didn't bother to confirm the obvious. Instead she said, "Who leads _your_ herd?"

"Evergold protects us."

"For now," Baby Featherfall answered solemnly.

But the purple colt, suddenly leaping in pursuit of a shimmering dragonfly, didn't hear her.

~*~*~*~*~

After introductions all around, the ponies settled by the river for the night, huddling together for protection and warmth. Sunshine rested her head on Nightglow's back, draping one wing over her mate and one over her child. Baby Featherfall knelt near her mother while Droplet flung herself into the soft grass, overcome with exhaustion. Tempest muttered that if he flew another mile, his wings would probably fall off. 

"It was a hard journey," Moonbeam murmured to Evergold; the two stood on a brief hill, overlooking the scene. The white unicorn and the gold earthling watched their charges shifting their legs, and twisting their heads this way and that, trying to find the most comfortable position for sleep. Some, after lying still for a few minutes, returned to their hooves and moved a few feet nearer or farther to the river, complaining of uncomfortable rocks. But after a time, silence fell, and remained. The only activity now was the twitching of the ear or hoof of an occasional dreamer. 

Still Moonbeam and Evergold watched. "There is safety in numbers," Moonbeam said at last. "And the raals had just taken the last stallion in my herd. It is good that we met."

"Perhaps." Evergold flicked her gold-spun tail. "But a larger herd draws more predators. More mountain cats, more raal . . . and if the herd does not act as one--"

"It _will_ act as one; it must." 

"But they are _not_ one. Not now; not yet. They are not one herd."

"Yes, I see," Moonbeam replied thoughtfully. "Those from your herd sleep in one huddle and those from mine in another . . ."

The stars wheeled above them, slowly, slowly, and a silence surrounded them.

"A herd can have but one leader," Evergold said at last. "Every pony knows it, and we two better than most."

"Yes," Moonbeam said. "So it has always been."

Again, silence. 

"There is another hill over there," Moonbeam said, tilting her head until her horn pointed towards it. "It is far enough away that they," she pointed her horn towards the sleepers, "would be unlikely to hear anything--"

"But close enough so we can keep an eye out for danger," Evergold finished, nodding in approval.

Without further comment they set out, shoulder by shoulder.

~*~*~*~*~

Deep in the thralls of sleep, Baby Nightglow dreamt of clashing hooves and blazes of cold white light . . . at last lapsing into a heavy silence. 

Not far away, two ponies dipped their heads respectfully. 

One turned away from the sleeping herd.

Forever.


	3. Broken Dreams

"But _why_ did she have to leave?" Baby Nightglow wailed, rubbing a hoof over his reddened eyes.

"Moonbeam will be able to protect us better than Evergold could," Sunshine patiently explained again, grabbing a mouthful of grass as she strode through the morning mists. Moonbeam said they were going to keep moving, so they moved.

"But . . . but . . ."

"Baby Nightglow, if a pack of raals attacked, would you rather be with an earthling or a unicorn?" his mother asked with a sigh.

The baby frowned. "Well . . . a unicorn. 'Cause they have magic."

"Right," the adult Nightglow agreed as if something had been settled.

"But why did Evergold have to leave?" the foal whined again. 

Sunshine gave an exasperated sigh. "A herd can't have two leaders, Baby Nightglow."

"But--"

"And if Evergold had stayed, some ponies would listen to her as leader and some would listen to Moonbeam."

He scuffed his hoof. "I know, but--"

"And _that_ is just the way things are," Sunshine finished firmly.

Baby Nightglow's ears flattened in frustration, and misery. "But Evergold was my _friend!"_ he said at last, another tear trailing down his cheek.

"She was my friend too . . . but keeping the herd safe is the most important thing. We have to think of what's best for all of us, not just one pony," replied Sunshine gently. "When you're older you'll understand." 

Far ahead, Moonbeam called for scouts and Sunshine spread her yellow wings, riding the wind. As she flew to the front of the herd, Baby Nightglow threw a heavy glance after her, then sadly continued following. 

Farther behind him, Shadow walked with steady calm, but his eyes narrowed slightly as he watched the baby pony. "That foal is going to be trouble," he muttered.

~*~*~*~*~

For a few days, the ponies moved steadily west, only stopping when they were truly too tired to take another step. Moonbeam sent the pegasi on one reconnaisance mission after another, and the unicorns patrolled constantly. Still, she felt an uneasiness that was shared by the herd. 

"Raals," Tempest growled one evening, savagely tearing up a mouthful of grass. "I can't see them and I can't smell them, but . . ." He shook his head and restlessly took to the air again. The others exchanged uneasy glances and drew closer together. 

Baby Nightglow huddled between his mother and father that night, staring wide-eyed into the night long after his parents slept. At last his eyes closed, surrendering to exhaustion . . .

_He stood in the clearing, alone. The darkness pressed at him from all sides, and he trembled. Behind him, a single twig cracked, and he froze. Turning his head a twitch at a time, he saw the raal out of the corner of his eye. The light patterned "eyespots" sworled on its fur gave the illusion that it was scanning the trees, but where eyes should have been the creature's face was simply smoothly concave. The ebony claws tipping its lithe forearms and powerful hind legs dully reflected the moonlight. The long, sleek head slowly turned towards him, huge ears twitching, and in a flash of panic Baby Nightglow remembered that they had they could see without seeing, like the bats which swooped blindly to catch the panicked night moths. And even as he stood paralyzed, the monster leaned towards him with a terrible focus, baring its teeth in an ivory grin. Gathering itself up, it leapt towards him with gleaming claws outstretched--_

Baby Nightglow sat up with a gasp. His parents still slept, occassionally twitching a hoof. On the right, Sunshine shifted in her sleep and extended her wing over Baby Nightglow a little more while her mate snored gently from the left. The baby pony stared around in confusion for a second before lying down between them once more, still trembling a little. "Only a dream," he whispered to himself. "Only a--" 

Behind him, a twig cracked.

Bolting forward in fright, Baby Nightglow felt claws swishing through his tail. Cries of alarm and fright rose behind him, but he concentrated on getting airborne, pumping his tiny wings frantically. Rising on a sudden gust, Baby Nightglow turned. 

The adult Nightglow swooped over the raal, ignoring the gash on his shoulder as he tried to distract it. The creature was calmly ducking away from Nightglow's blows, and every step brought it closer to Sunshine.

"Mama! Up here!" Baby Nightglow called frantically, flapping closer. He gasped as he circled around; Sunshine's right wing drooped at an unnatural angle, the delicate tendons torn and dripping crimson. _My fault . . . she had her wing over me._ "Mama! Run!" he sobbed. But Sunshine stood, screaming a wordless, defiant cry, and reared. The raal gathered its great muscles--

And like a spear of darkness, a black unicorn leapt in front of the mare. Shadow tossed his black mane and a bolt of darkness swept the raal from its feet. With a hiss of surprise, it righted itself--only to find two more unicorns leaping into the fray. Hundreds of tiny lights swirled from Glimmer's horn, lighting up night, and Moonbeam sent flash after flash of silvery moonlight after the creature as it howled in protest.

The earthlings gathered protectively around Sunshine, though Azure looked as though she might jump into the fight at any moment. Tempest and Thistledown joined Nightglow in harassing the raal from the air. Try as he might, Baby Nightglow could not spot Baby Featherfall. As he anxiously scanned the sky and ground for her, the unicorns concentrated their attack, fighting as one. The raal screamed in pain, writhing as bolt after bolt of magical energy singed its fur. Moonbeam reared, pawing the air, and brought a sharp-edged hoof down with all her might. 

A sickening crunch; then silence.

Nightglow flew down and nuzzled his mate as she vainly tried to fold back her injured wing and the other pegasi gathered anxiously around her. Moonbeam knelt and wiped her hoof on the grass. Baby Nightglow landed, staring around with wide eyes. The tall grass rustled beside him and Baby Featherfall cautiously lifted her head.

"What were you doing down there?" Baby Nightglow asked.

"That's what baby ponies are supposed to do when raals are around. That's what my--my daddy taught me." She lowered her head and Baby Nightglow suddenly remembered the grown-ups saying something about raals killing the last stallion in Moonbeam's herd. 

_Grown-ups. Mama._ The colt moved slowly towards the knot of ponies surrounding Sunshine. _If she hadn't had her wing over me . . . and Daddy's hurt too._ He weaved through a forest of legs, pushing between the adults. "Mama?" His voice wavered. "Are you okay?"

She looked around. "I'm just fine, sweetie." Baby Nightglow looked uncertainly at her limp, torn wing. "Don't you worry about a thing," she repeated, nuzzling him. 

"You'll be fine . . . just fine." Her mate stomped a hoof anxiously. "The unicorns--they'll help. You'll be fine. Just fine."

"Don't forget that I'm not the only one who needs help," Sunshine said sweetly, glancing pointedly at the blood drying on Nightglow's purple shoulder. 

"Huh? Oh . . . it's only a scratch, my dear." He managed a smile.

Glimmer pushed between Droplet and Azure. "I have some small skill at healing," she said softly, looking from Nightglow to Sunshine.

"Some _small_ skill?" Tempest said sharply. "How small are we talking?"

Glimmer blinked. "I will do all I can. Hopefully it will be enough."

"Enough to fix her wing?" the silver pegasus demanded.

Glimmer stared at the injury, looking uncomfortable. "I . . . I will do all I can," she repeated.

"Let her be, Tempest," Shadow frowned. "She _said_ she will do what she can. By the Rainbow, you can hardly expect more!"

"I am simply trying to get some straight answers," Tempest retorted. "Well, I'm going to patrol. That raal may not have been part of a pack, but he may have had a mate." He spread his wings and flew off.

Glimmer glanced from Nightglow to Sunshine. "Can you make it to the river? I think it would help . . . my magic works best when I'm by water."

"And alone," murmured Droplet.

_"I'm_ fine," Nightglow announced.

"It's my wing that's hurt, not my legs," Sunshine said agreeably.

Glimmer nodded and headed towards the stream, followed by the two pegasi. Despite his claim, Nightglow was limping. Baby Nightglow quietly trailed along behind them.

"First let's wash off the wounds," Glimmer suggested. The stallion nodded, cautiously wading into the cold water. Sunshine likewise stepped into the water, leaning to the right to wet down her wing.

Glimmer circled around the pair as they sat on the grass, waiting for their fur to dry. "I'll start with your leg," she said to Nightglow at last.

"But Sunshine--"

"Her wing won't get any worse, and I think your leg is more vunerable to infection," Glimmer explained. She lowered her head and concentrated; as a faint glow surrounded her horn, the skin around the gash extended, knitting together. 

Nightglow flexed his leg and reared a little. "Not even a scar," he said in an awed voice.

"Now for your wing . . . " Glimmer nervously regarded the tangle of feathers and splintered bones. Taking a deep breath, she closed her eyes and her horn began to glow once more. Her frown of concentration deepened as the bones slowly grew together and new feathers blossomed. The other three ponies froze stockstill, afraid that their slightest movement would disturb the unicorn's work. The most delicate tendons, the flight muscles, began to repair themselves, slowly, slowly . . . but then . . . 

The light flared around Glimmer's head, a wash of pure magical energy; it sizzled without heat around the yellow wing, then died as suddenly as it had began. Glimmer blinked, dazed, then stared at Sunshine's wing. Completely, perfectly healed, not a hint of blood or bruise anywhere . . . but at the wrong angle.

Sunshine tried to fold it back and failed. She tried to flap it and it only jerked in pathetic half motions. 

Glimmer seemed to crumple. "I'm sorry . . . I'm so, so sorry," she cried. "If only I had held on for a few seconds more!"

Nightglow nuzzled his mate, stunned. "Can't you . . . try again?" he gasped.

"It doesn't work that way." Nightglow turned to find Shadow watching; as usual, the unicorn had showed up where he was least expected.

"Only one chance," Glimmer agreed. "And I failed." She hung her head.

"You tried your best," Sunshine said. "Please don't cry, Glimmer. You had the courage to try; I'm grateful for that."

Glimmer shook her head and slowly walked away. Shadow tilted his head, then hesitantly followed after her. Sunshine and Nightglow leaned against each other and Baby Nightglow stayed quiet, unnoticed behind them. He frowned, flicking his ears at a strange sound . . . suddenly, he knew it was his mother . . . crying. He was stunned. Parents could be angry, parents could be confused, parents could even be sad, but parents were _never ever_ supposed to cry.

"There, there," Nightglow was repeating to her over and over. "There, there."

"I'm s-sorry," Sunshine sobbed. "I know I'm being s-silly about this."

"Silly? No!" Nightglow scoffed. "You just need a little time to . . ." He trailed off uncertainly, but luckily Sunshine didn't seem to notice.

"I mean, at least I'm alive and . . . I was so afraid it would get you, Nightglow, you kept swooping over it so low. And our baby--if he hadn't sensed the danger--"

_If I hadn't woken up, maybe you would be okay._ Baby Nightglow huddled self-consciously. Maybe Baby Featherfall's trick for hiding from raals would also hide him here.

"We _are_ together," Nightglow confirmed. "That's what's important. If only Glimmer had been able to control her magic for a second more--" For the first time, there was anger in his voice.

"It wasn't her fault," Sunshine sighed. "Truly, it wasn't. She has only _minor_ healing abilities, Nightglow. She did the best she could with what the Rainbow gave her."

"Maybe the Rainbow should've given her a little more," Nightglow muttered.

His mate frowned. "The Rainbow kept us alive, and that's enough for now. Let's rejoin the herd now. Moonbeam will want us to move tonight in case there _are_ other raals."

Nightglow nodded . . . and folded back his wings. When his mate walked, he walked. He had a feeling that he would be walking a lot from now on.

~*~*~*~*~

As Sunshine had predicted, Moonbeam moved the herd immediately. She had pushed them hard before, but never so hard as this. At daybreak she permitted an hour's rest, but then they began moving again. "We have to leave the blood behind us," Moonbeam kept repeating, and no one argued with her. Raals hunted by scent, too. 

At last, the ponies could barely able to keep their eyes open as they stumbled forward. Sunshine suffered the most, being unused to walking. (Nightglow's resolution to walk with her had failed when Moonbeam had sent him ahead of the group as a scout.) 

"Halt!" Moonbeam called at long last. She called Nightglow and Tempest down and conferred with them for a few minutes. "Forward," she said. "I think we've found a place to bed down for a few days." 

Relieved, the ponies followed her into a verdant valley, lush with meadow flowers and soft green grass.

"A waterfall!" Baby Nightglow gasped, gazing at a pure stream of water flowing off an elevated rock shelf. The "waterfall" was only five or six feet high. Baby Featherfall also looked as impressed as the colt, but the adults had other things on their minds. 

"Mmmm . . . flowers." Azure murmured with satisfaction.

She chewed them slowly as she watched Nightglow pull up a bunch of violets and carefully set them before his mate. Sunshine looked at him cooly. "I _can_ still walk, you know."

Nightglow looked surprised. "Well, yes, but--"

"I'm not a _total_ cripple yet." It was a wonder the stream didn't freeze at the sound of her voice. 

"I never said you were," he gaped.

"Oh, just leave me alone!" Sunshine wailed, burying her head between her hooves. Nightglow hesitated before walking away in confusion. 

_I'm going to have to give him a talking to,_ Azure thought. _Sunshine needs some space, poor thing . . ._ Her thoughts turned at the sound of her brother's voice.

"This will be an easy place to guard," Tempest was saying. "Next to no trees on the horizon, not much chance of an ambush. But who's going to take first watch?" He glanced around; three or four ponies had already fallen into a deep slumber in the soft grass.

_"I_ will take first watch," Moonbeam replied calmly. "Sleep now, ponies." They obeyed gratefully. Moonbeam tucked her legs beneath her and began scanning the lip of the valley. She felt safe. She was _almost_ positive that they had shaken off any predators. _But better safe than sorry,_ she thought, and she carefully examined the rim of the valley again.

Baby Nightglow slept soundly and dreamlessly in the peaceful valley, but at last he raised his head, blinking the sleep from his eyes. In the grey of false dawn, the adults slept on with the exception of the current watcher, Shadow. _Waterfall!_ the baby thought with excitement, galloping towards the burbling stream.

Baby Featherfall was already splashing in the brook when he arrived. She smiled. "I've never seen a waterfall before."

_"I_ have," Baby Nightglow said importantly. But honesty compelled him to add, "I was really little, though. I don't really remember it."

"It couldn't have been much nicer than this one," the rainbow-haired filly said, leaping after a frog, and Baby Nightglow had to agree. After helping Baby Featherfall in her pursuit of the frog, they swam and splashed in the pool beneath the waterfall, played tag, and played hide-and-seek amongst the thin, waving reeds. 

It was Baby Nightglow who first got the idea of sliding down the waterfall. He wondered why he hadn't thought of it before. "C'mon, it'll be fun!" he said, standing at the top of the rocky shelf.

Baby Featherfall looked dubious. "Will we get in trouble?"

The purple colt took a quick glance around. Shadow was still the only other pony awake, soaking up the earliest rays of light, and he could _never_ remember Shadow scolding him or telling him not to do something. In fact, the unicorn generally ignored him. Besides, he was looking at Glimmer right now.

"No one will mind," Baby Nightglow said. No one awake, anyway. Without further ado, he bellyflopped into the stream, stifling a shriek of excitement as he rocketed over the ledge and into the pool below. He surfaced and tried to push his dripping blue forelock out of his eyes. "Try it! It's fun!"

Soon the pink filly came sailing over the waterfall, her mane and tail streaming behind her like miniature rainbows. "That _was_ fun," she agreed. The foals had great fun going over the waterfall on their bellies . . . and their backs . . . and backwards. They spread out their wings as they went over the edge of the waterfall so they'd soar--only a short distance, though, because their wings were soaked through. Laughing, the purple colt climbed out of the little pool again. Turning, he watched Baby Featherfall sail over the waterfall, into the air--

And she _stayed_ in the air an instant before drifting down, as slowly and gently as a dandelion puff. Baby Nightglow gasped in amazement. "How did you do that? You didn't even open your wings!" 

"It's magic," she explained.

_"Pegasi_ don't have magic," the purple baby scoffed.

"But Rainbow ponies have magic," Baby Featherfall countered, shaking a spray of water from her mane. _"Rainbow_ magic."

"Rainbow pony?" Baby Nightglow repeated. "Is that why your hair is so pre--Is that why your hair is like that?"

"Uh huh," the pink pegasus confirmed without particular interest. "Come on, Baby Nightglow, I'll race you to the top of the waterfall!"

~*~*~*~*~

"Well, dragon, it looks like you had a productive day," Nightglow said as his son bounded towards him with straggling, soaking hair. 

"Baby Featherfall an' me played all day! Then it got too dark to see the waterfall, but we counted shooting stars!" Baby Nightglow announced. His mother looked happier now, he noted.

She nuzzled him fondly. "I'm glad you had so much fun. You should get some sleep now." 

The colt flopped onto his back beside Sunshine, snuggling next to her. "Mama? Will we stay here a while? I like this place."

"Probably, Baby Nightglow. Everyone's very tired still."

"I wish we could stay here forever . . ." His eyes kept trying to drift shut. "Did you know the stars make shapes? Baby Featherfall didn't believe me--" he stifled a yawn, "--but then she saw them too."

His parents exchanged quizzical looks. "What kind of shapes?" his father asked.

"I saw a dragon . . . and a pegasus . . . and a lion . . ."

"Lions are just pretend," Sunshine reminded him.

"Yeah, but . . . it's there. See?" He pointed his hoof skyward. "What do you see when you look, Daddy?"

"Stars," Nightglow replied simply.

"I don't see any dragons or lions either," Sunshine smiled. "Our eyes must not be as good as yours."

"Anyone can . . . see them if they . . . try . . ." His head nodded.

"No lions or dragons . . . just a tired little pegasus," Nightglow laughed softly, lying down. 

Soon _three_ little pegasi were sound asleep. None of them woke when a figure darker than the night glided behind them--Shadow, ready to replace Tempest and take watch once again. 

Reaching a grassy hillock, he stared at the spangled sky. Stars. But after a few minutes he saw the dragon forever writhing towards the frozen pegasus. 

Lowering his gaze, he stared hard at the purple colt tucked between his parents. "That foal is going to be trouble," he repeated to himself.

~*~*~*~*~

When Nightglow awoke the next morning, his foal was already up chasing the butterflies. "Azure says that we _will_ be staying here another day," Sunshine told him. "She asked Moonbeam."

"Thank the Rainbow," Nightglow sighed, stretching his wings.

"Guess what?" Baby Nightglow said suddenly. "When I grow up, I'm going to be a _Rainbow_ pony! Then I can do magic and--"

"Oh, dragon!" Nightglow laughed. Sunshine was stifling a giggle too. 

The foal's face fell. "What?" he asked.

"You can't just _become_ a Rainbow pony!" Sunshine smiled at the idea.

"But . . . but you said when baby ponies grow up, they choose their own names and get their own colors! You said so!" The foal's lip trembled.

"Sit down, son. I'll explain," Nightglow said kindly. _"Most_ little babies look like their mother or their father . . . For example, when I was a foal, I was silver with purple hair, just like my father, and I was called Baby Whirlwind."

Baby Nightglow tried to picture his father as a foal and failed.

". . . and when they begin to grow up they have a Naming Ceremony," Nightglow continued. "And you're right, they _do_ pick out their own name and get their own colors."

"Right!" the baby pegasus agreed. "So--"

"BUT Rainbow ponies are different. Why do you think Baby Featherfall looks different than her mother?" 

"Uh . . ."

"Rainbow ponies have their own symbol and colors from the moment they're born," Sunshine broke in. "And always that rainbow hair."

"Why?"

"The Rainbow chooses them to be defenders of the herds. Their magic protects us all," she said.

Baby Nightglow looked surprise. "Baby Featherfall is a . . . a protector of the herd?"

"She will be someday."

Baby Nightglow frowned. "So I _can't_ be a Rainbow pony? Because they're born that way?" 

"I'm afraid not, dragon." His father nuzzled him.

"But you'll always be our special little pony," Sunshine added, giving him a hug.

Baby Nightglow hugged her back . . . but some rebellious little part of him whispered that he would like to be their special little pony _and_ a Rainbow pony besides.


	4. Lost

"Wake up, Baby Nightglow! Wake up!" Someone was nuzzling him. He yawned and stretched. "What is it, daddy?"

"We're moving on, dragon." Nightglow spread his wings, cutting through the dull grey mist cloaking the valley. 

The smaller pegasus blinked his eyes and shook his head, sending a spray of dewdrops into the fog. "Aww, right now? It's not even dawn!"

"'Ponies who stay soon become prey,'" his father quoted. "Come on now, up up up!" 

Baby Nightglow sat up with a reluctant sigh. A pegasus and a unicorn--he couldn't tell who--drifted through the mist and were greeted with groans and yawns as they woke the other ponies.

As his parents looked towards the ponies grouping in the middle of the meadow, Baby Nightglow was struck with a thought. He trotted towards the tiny waterfall. Suddenly, a shape materialized out of the mist . . . 

"Oof!" Baby Featherfall gasped as the purple pegasus collided with her. "Who--Baby Nightglow? What are you doing?"

Baby Nightglow untangled his legs, tripping over Baby Featherfall's colorful tail a few times. "I was just--ouch!--going to take a last look at the waterfall. You know . . . to . . . say goodbye."

Baby Featherfall looked at him curiously. "It's just another place."

He shuffled his hooves. "Yeah . . . I know. But . . ."

"I'll go with you," Baby Featherfall offered, coming to a decision. "Maybe we can slide down it one last time."

"Okay!" Baby Nightglow began trotting again and Featherfall kept pace. "It might be too cold on a morning like--" Suddenly his hooves met empty air. "Whoooooa!"

Baby Featherfall managed to flap into the air as she saw Baby Nightglow somersault out of sight with a splash. "Baby Nightglow?" Her tiny pink wings strained to keep her airborne. "Are you okay?" 

More splashing. Baby Nightglow pulled himself over a fog-shrouded bank. "Uh . . . I found the stream." He began to laugh.

Baby Featherfall landed, giggling. "The fog makes it sound farther away," she said, playfully dabbling a hoof in the water. 

"There's the waterfall," Baby Nightglow announced. "We're just a little downstream."

The pink filly gazed upward. "It looks different with the fog pouring over it," she said thoughtfully. 

"It'll be even more fun," the other baby laughed, scrambling up the enbankment. "C'mon!"

Shrieking with delight, they sailed over the edge. "Let's do it again!" laughed the colt.

"Well . . . maybe _one_ more time," Baby Featherfall agreed, shaking the water from her wings.

Twenty minutes later, Baby Nightglow and Baby Featherfall tumbled over the waterfall yet again. 

"We should get back," the pink pegasus giggled. "Moonbeam will want to get going."

Baby Nightglow snapped his tail to dry it out. "Yeeeeah, I guess." He grinned. "We'll come back someday!"

"What if Moonbeam wants to go somewhere else?" Baby Featherfall said practically, carefully watching the ground to make sure she didn't trip over obscured stones.

The purple colt frowned, then brightened. "When we're grown-up, we can go anywhere we want," he said. 

"I don't know if being grown-up is that easy," Baby Featherfall ventured. 

Baby Nightglow thought of his mother. "Yeah, maybe you're right."

They walked in silence for a while.

"Hey, shouldn't we have reached the herd by now?" Baby Nightglow asked after a few minutes.

Baby Featherfall looked around, staring hard into the greyness. "We're going in the right direction." She turned in a slow circle. "I think."

"They were in the middle of the valley," Baby Nightglow said. "But kind of spread out, so there should be _somebody_ near us. Let's keep walking."

After a hundred paces, they stopped. 

"I know it wasn't this far," Baby Nightglow worried. "Where is everyone?"

Baby Featherfall reared. "Mommy!" she called. "Mommy!" 

Silence.

Baby Nightglow could feel every contraction of his heart. "Mommy! Daddy!" His voice faded into the fog. "Mommy, it's me! Please come find me! Please . . ." He looked at the pink baby pony. "Where _are_ they?"

The foals huddled together. "I think we're lost," Baby Featherfall whispered.

Baby Nightglow swallowed a sob. 

The pink pony's ears pricked up. "Shh! Do you hear something?"

The colt raised his head hopefully. "Is it--is it them?"

"I don't k--" Baby Featherfall froze in mid-sentence. The ponies stared as a mist-shrouded _something_ glided past them. Something that walked on two legs. Something that swiveled its head with every step, searching without eyes. Raal.

It paused only a few feet away from the foals, intently sniffing the air, cocking it's head this way and that before slowly turning towards them. Hesitant, it seemed to almost peer into the fog before taking a careful step forward. And another. And another. Frozen, Baby Nightglow stared at the delicate sworls of black fur covering the sleek leg inches from his face. It was easier to focus on than the claws further down. With a ripple of muscle, the leg lifted . . . ebony claws dangled in front of his eyes. _He's going to bump right into me. Help!_ But the creature paused, its long neck twisting as it scanned once again, then turned away and loped into the fog.

"It didn't find us," Baby Nightglow gasped after a minute.

"We were--we were too low for it to notice." Baby Featherfall was trembling. "It never looked down."

"Thank the Rainbow," Baby Nightglow sighed. 

Silently, swiftly, the pink baby rose to her hooves. "Let's get out of here."

Baby Nightglow hesitated. "How will the herd find us?"

From across the valley came the shrill scream of a dying rabbit. 

"They'll find us _alive,"_ Baby Featherfall said decisively, tossing her colorful mane. Without another word, Baby Nightglow followed her into the fog.

~*~*~*~*~ 

Sunshine stood tensely, watching Nightglow leap onto the wind with Tempest and Thistledown. The blaze of noon had burnt off the mist, and they were easily seen, specks of purple, silver, and pink outlined against a flawless blue sky. Her good wing quivered involuntarily. _That's where I should be . . . looking for my baby. Not down_ here. _ Useless. _ She wasn't sure whether she meant her wing or not.

"Sunshine?" Glimmer shifted her weight from hoof to hoof.

The yellow pegasus blinked in surprise. The grey unicorn had avoided her since the botched healing attempt. "Uh . . . yes?" 

"I'm sure Baby Nightglow will be all right. I can--I can _feel_ it." 

Sunshine raised her head, staring after the pegasus scouts. _But how? He's out there somewhere, all alone!_

As if reading the pegasus' thoughts, Glimmer added, "Baby Featherfall is with him."

Sunshine could not stop a tear from escaping. "She's only a baby pony. She can't take care of my little colt."

"But she's also a Rainbow pony," came a soft, musical voice from behind. "The Light shines upon her, even through the rain."

Sunshine turned to find a white pony with deep purple hair watching her. What was her name, now? Oh yes, Droplet. _I haven't spoken two words to her since we met . . . too busy running from raals. Raals . . . _ "The Rainbow won't save them from a predator's teeth," Sunshine replied distractedly.

"It will be all right, Sunshine," Droplet repeated comfortingly, nuzzling Sunshine. 

"They'll be okay," Glimmer echoed. She glanced after the flight of the pegasus scouters, now lost in the mist. _I hope._

The distant stars cast a cold light on the foals as they stumbled along.

"I'm tired," Baby Nightglow sighed.

"Me too," Baby Featherfall replied, but her pace didn't slow. _We have to get to safety. Wherever that is._

"We've been walking for hours," Baby Nightglow continued. The filly didn't reply. "Let's climb on that big rock and see where we are," the colt said.

"We know where we are; we're LOST," Baby Featherfall said, but she spread her wings and struggled, half flying, half climbing, onto the huge granite boulder as the purple colt did the same.

Rolling plains stretched to the distant horizon, covered with scratchy, determined wisps of wild grass and dotted here and there with such wildflowers as could survive the burning glare of the sun in the day and the cold stare of the moon at night. An occassional boulder, half darkened with moon shadows, rose with an ominous majesty, apparentally tossed at random into the fields by some impossibly strong force. A cold wind ripped across the flatlands, bending the yellowish grass in rippling waves.

"Have you ever seen land like this?" Baby Featherfall asked.

Baby Nightglow shook his head, too tired and overwhelmed to speak.

"Me neither." The little Rainbow pony cast another glance at her friend. _He_ does_ look tired . . . maybe we shouldn't have left the forest,_ she thought. _But there were raals in the forest . . ._ "Why don't we stop here?" she suggested.

"Here?" It would be a relief for his throbbing hooves, but . . . "What if something comes after us?"

"Well, we'll have to sleep sometime," Baby Featherfall said with practicality. "And if we stay up here, I don't think any raals will find us . . . they look on the ground for food." How ironic that the only safe hiding place was on top of a boulder in a field, in plain sight. She hoped very hard that there were no pumas nearby.

Perhaps with similar thoughts, Baby Nightglow said, "Let's look for a rock with an overhang or something. Then we'd be high enough to hide from raals and hidden from any other hunters too."

_Unless they hunt by smell,_ thought the pink pegasus, but there was little point in worrying about things they couldn't change. "That sounds like a good idea," she said. "Let's try that rock over there." _Please, Rainbow, protect us . . ._

~*~*~*~*~ 

The moon gave Tempest's silver coat a glowing sheen as he glided over evergreen forest and scraggly meadow. A strong gust of wind swelled under his feathers, trying to lift him towards the boundless sky, but he leveled himself with an impatient twist of his wings. _Not tonight. _

He scanned the ground, looking for the faintest sign of life--a flicker of movement, an echo of voices . . . or of death--a gathering of crows, a smear of blood. So far he had seen only nightbirds, crying indignantly as he swept past, but he knew the foals were _somewhere_ down there . . . dead or alive. Probably dead. Tempest had no illusions; a pony separated from his herd was an easy meal, especially a foal. If the foals had stayed in the valley . . . but they had found nothing. 

Well, that wasn't quite true. He had spotted a faint but unmistakeable imprint of a raal's five-clawed foot near the stream (and nearby, the remains of a rabbit), but why mention it? Surely the foals had left safely or there would've been . . . evidence. Besides, he wasn't sure how Nightglow and Thistledown would've reacted to the news. Nightglow had become progressively more distraught as they searched, unsurprisingly. Thistledown, though . . . her eyes seemed as hard as stone as they swept the valley again and again, and he could feel the challenge in her stare, daring him to give up. 

_Not that I_ would_ suggest such a thing,_ Tempest reflected. _Not so early as this . . . Hey-o, what's that?_ Shifting his wings, he angled downward. The dry, brittle stems of prairie grass and wildflowers shattered beneath his hooves as he landed in a swirl of dust. _Cold here at night, but I'll bet it burns in the day, all right. Well, let's see . . ._ He looked around. _Something_ had moved down here . . . probably too small to be a pony, but . . .

As Tempest stepped forward, a jackrabbit burst from under his hooves and raced across the field, in the perpetual panic that all small, defenseless animals share. The stallion snorted in disappointment. Well, it was almost time to return to the valley and meet the others anyway . . .

"Baby Featherfall! Baby Nightglow!" he called, just in case. His blue mane danced wildly in the cold wind as he stood, head cocked . . .

The two foals huddled together in exhausted sleep, somewhat protected from the chilling breeze by the outcropping of rock that extended cave-like around and above them. Baby Nightglow stirred in his sleep, then stuggled to sit up. So . . . tired . . . 

"Uh? What're you doing?" Baby Featherfall muttered, gazing at him with sleep-hazed eyes.

"I thought I heard my daddy calling me," Baby Nightglow said slowly.

The foals sat in silence for several minutes, straining their ears against angry howl of the wind sweeping across the rocks.

"It was a dream, Nightglow," Baby Featherfall said at last. 

"I guess." The foals lay down on the cold rock once more and immediately fell back into a tangle of confused dreams.

Not far away, a silver pegasus leapt into the sky.


	5. Danger Without, Danger Within

As the false dawn greyed the sky, Moonbeam thoughtfully eyed the three pegasi in front of her. Despite being beraggled with sweat and drooping with exhaustion, she was sure Thistledown and Nightglow would still be searching if Tempest hadn't gruffly insisted that they return to the herd. "So there was no trace of them at the river? Nothing to show where they'd gone?" she repeated. 

"No," Nightglow said, "but I'm sure if we go back and look again . . ." His wings twitched.

"It was already getting dark by the time we got there," Thistledown quickly added, tossing her white mane. "That's why we didn't find anything."

Moonbeam raised an eyebrow. "Tempest?"

He spread his silver wings in a shrug. "There were some prints by the cascades, but since the foals had been there the day before . . ." There was the faintest flicker of . . . _something_ . . . in his voice.

Moonbeam stared at him for a heartbeat, expressionless, before speaking. "I want you three to get some rest." Nightglow and Thistledown provided a jumbled chorus of protest, but the white unicorn silenced them with a look. "We'll take the herd back and make a thorough search. I need you _rested_ for that."

"Thank you, Moonbeam," Nightglow sighed, and the unicorn inclined her head, well aware that she was not being thanked for her order to rest. 

"Thank you," Thistledown echoed.

Tempest simply bobbed his head and turned away to follow his fellow pegasi down the grassy hillside.

"Wait, Tempest," Moonbeam said calmly. "I would like a word with you."

Tempest frowned, but turned back. "Yes?"

Moonbeam watched him a few minutes as he shifted with growing discomfort. "What exactly did you find by the stream?" she said at last.

"I found hoofprints," Tempest said. 

"Are you sure they weren't new?"

Tempest shrugged. "Who knows? They didn't seem to lead anywhere besides the little waterfall."

"Hmm . . ." Moonbeam flipped her ivory forelock from her eyes. "And what else did you find?"

"What _else?"_

Moonbeam waited. 

"I found other footprints," Tempest grudgingly admitted at last. "Raal prints."

The sickening surge of despair never flickered onto Moonbeam's face. "Hunting? Chasing something?" she calmly asked.

"I don't think so. It looked like it had stopped for a drink. They didn't seem to be following . . . anything. It did get a rabbit, that I saw. I didn't see any other . . . blood."

Moonbeam frowned. "Nightglow and Thistledown didn't see?" she asked, and mentally thanked the Rainbow when Tempest shook his head. "Thank you, Tempest. You'd better try to get some sleep now. We'll start moving in a few hours."

"Yes, Moonbeam," Tempest muttered, stumbling down the hill.

Moonbeam carefully lowered herself onto the sweet grass. A few birds now sang as the sun blazed over the distant hilltops. She blinked, unable to stare into the liquid fire. Idly she wondered if Evergold was still alive. But she pushed her dim memories of the golden earthling away. _Done is done, gone is gone, and a pony without a herd is as good as dead._

~*~*~*~*~ 

Baby Nightglow and Baby Featherfall walked in silence, occassionally snatching up a mouthful of dry, sun-scorched grass. The blue and white blooms of the bachelor buttons tasted better, but by now most of them had withered away under the burning sun.

"I wish there was something _good_ to eat out here," Baby Nightglow said after a while. "I'm tired of these sticks."

"I wish it weren't so hot," Baby Featherfall said. 

"Me too. I wish we'd find some water . . ."

". . . or shade . . ."

"Or the herd."

"My daddy used to say that if wishes were wings, earthlings would fly," Baby Featherfall sighed, tossing her sweat-soaked mane.

"I also wish the flies weren't so bad--" Baby Nightglow complained, almost tripping over a rock as they topped the ridge of a steep hill. "Hey, look! There are trees over there!"

"Trees?" Baby Featherfall raised her head and gasped. As abrupt as a river cutting a path through a rocky bank, a verdant paradise of greenery stretched before them. "It's not just trees," she said slowly. "It's a whole _forest . . ."_

"A forest with _shade!"_ Baby Nightglow breathed reverently, then broke into a gallop. The pink filly hesitated before following at a slower pace, but Baby Nightglow didn't notice. Faster and faster he ran, pounding through the curling, yellowed grass, beating the smoldering red soil that burned his hooves. His hooves drummed a steady rhythm against the hardened ground and his wings unfurled, carrying him into the forest of languid trees almost dripping with heavy dew, while ferns quietly brushed their fronds against a carpet of soft green moss. 

"Ohh, it _is_ a lot cooler in here," the colt sighed contently, stretching his wings as a refreshing breeze ruffled his blue mane. 

"I don't think we should go in there." Baby Featherfall stood at the edge of the glade, peering in suspiciously.

Baby Nightglow looked incredulous. "You want to wander around out _there_ in the heat?" 

"Well, no. But have you ever seen a forest like this?"

"Not plants _exactly_ like this, but so what?" he shrugged. "I've never seen a field with big _rocks_ lying around either."

The Rainbow foal shifted from hoof to hoof. "That's not what I meant. Have you ever seen a forest that just . . . _starts_ like this? Shouldn't there be a few trees here and there until the forest _really_ starts? But here, the dry land ends _right here--"_ She planted a hoof firmly on the cracked, arid ground. "--and the forest starts _right here."_ She placed her other hoof onto a spongy pillow of moss. 

Baby Nightglow tilted his purple head, considering. "Well . . . yeah, that's kind of weird. But we can't stay out there in the heat. I thought my coat would start sizzling!" He licked a little dew off a rubbery, broad-leafed plant.

Baby Featherfall paced fretfully. "I don't know what to do . . . " 

"It's fine in here," Baby Nightglow said encouragingly, though Baby Featherfall's jitters were now making _him_ feel a little nervous. "I don't smell any danger." 

Hesitantly, the pink filly edged into the forest. "I still think this is a bad idea."

_She really doesn't like this,_ Baby Nightglow thought anxiously. _What should I do? What would Daddy do if he were here?_ He nuzzled his friend. "If we go all the way through this forest, I'll bet we can find the valley with that little waterfall and figure out where the herd went. I'll go first," he said. "Just in case. Don't worry, there's nothing to be afraid of!" Lifting his hooves high, he began striding through the forest, more bravely than he felt. 

Baby Featherfall shook her colorful mane and followed him. "I'm _not_ afraid," she whispered to herself, "and that _is_ what worries me."

~*~*~*~*~ 

Shadow rested his head on the ground, exhausted from yet another futile search. After sending tendrils of shadow magic coursing through the woods, blindly seeking anything large and warm-blooded, he had found only a few very frightened and confused deer. Glimmer hovered nearby (figuratively speaking), occassionally sending shimmering globes of light high into the sky so that the foals would know where the herd was if they were nearby. Droplet, Azure, and Lilac had not yet returned from their ground search.

Sunshine sat near the unicorns, feeling useless as she stared at the tiny splashes of water cascading over and around the smooth-worn rocks. This was where she had seen him last . . . so recently that she half-believed that he would leap over the lip of the cataract any moment, shrieking joyfully. Half-believing . . . and yet knowing he was gone . . . . She closed her eyes.

A moment later she heard the swish of wings and lifted her head. Nightglow had returned from yet another ariel search, wearily and awkwardly gliding to the ground instead of landing with his usual flourish. He exchanged a few words with Moonbeam in a low tone, then slowly moved towards Sunshine, favoring one hoof. 

The yellow pegasus bit her lip; "Nightglow--are you okay?" she anxiously queried, galloping up to him. 

He managed a smile. "It was my own fault . . . just a clumsy landing. I saw something move in a field and--" his voice faltered as he lowered his head. "It wasn't him," he whispered.

His mate nuzzled him gently. "Your leg, Nightglow. Maybe Glimmer can help." 

Nightglow snorted and rolled his eyes. 

_He still hasn't forgiven her for my wing,_ the orange-maned mare thought, and inexplicably felt a wave of relief. "She did her best, Nightglow," Sunshine reminded him. "She has more healing powers than any unicorn in the herd."

"Only because the others don't have _any_ healing magic," he muttered, glancing around to make sure the grey unicorn wouldn't hear.

"Nightglow--did you . . . did you find anything? Any trace?" She already knew the answer, but still a lilt of hope crept into her voice. Her face fell as he shook his head.

"I searched, Sunshine . . . Every trail, I followed. Every twitch of movement, I stopped for. I found _nothing_ . . . nothing but deer tracks and rabbits. Sometimes . . . sometimes I'd almost forget what I was looking for, _why_ I was looking, but then I'd see his face, remember his eyes . . ." He blinked through his tears. "Eyes so blue . . . like the sky in summer . . ."

Sunshine quietly leaned against him. "Nightglow, Nightglow . . . you'll see those eyes again. He's safe somewhere, you'll see. We just need to believe."

"Every hour, every minute, it gets harder." His voice broke. "How long can a pony believe?"

She pressed her cheek to his and their tears melted together. "Belief is all we have left, dear."

Nearby, Shadow lifted his head a moment before laying it heavily on the ground again. _Sometimes belief is not enough._

~*~*~*~*~ 

"We can stop for a rest if you're tired, Featherfall." The purple colt glanced behind him. "Uh . . . Featherfall?"

"Hmm? Sorry, I'm over here." After a brief rustling, she fluttered casually over a leafy plant blossoming with huge and frilly red flowers. 

"We should really stay _together,"_ Baby Nightglow said anxiously.

Baby Featherfall nodded absently, staring at the canopy of green above them as she began wandering away again. She had become more and more distracted as they had continued through the forest. Ironically, she now appeared perfectly unconcerned while the sick feeling of worry writhing in Baby Nightglow's stomach had grown exponentially.

_This isn't like her at all,_ he thought anxiously. _Not at all._ He paused, anxiously looking at her. "Are you feeling okay?" 

"Huh? . . . I'm fine. We're getting closer," she replied distantly, still walking. 

"Closer?? Baby Featherfall, stop!" he said, stamping a hoof. "Closer to _what?"_

As she halted, her eyes seemed to flicker a moment, then focus. "I don't know. The edge of the forest, I guess. You sure are jumpy, Baby Nightglow. It was _your_ idea to come in here, remember?"

"I know," he muttered. "Maybe I was wrong. Maybe we should go back."

"After travelling in _this_ far? Backtracking all that way?"

He sighed. "I guess not . . . but let's stay close together, okay?"

"Well, of course we will," Baby Featherfall replied in a practical tone.

They started off again, but before long the filly began drifting again; Baby Nightglow gave up and simply began following her. _It's not like we knew where we were going anyway._

The foals pushed through thick waves of ferns and brilliant flowers, ducking under moss-covered tree trunks propped at awkward angles and flying over the rocks that occassionally arose in their path, crumbling and ancient. Baby Nightglow paused by one, examining it, for it seemed to him that it was more symmetrical than a rock should be, but he quickly leapt off the stone, picking up his pace to keep up with Baby Featherfall. She was moving at a slow trot, barely taking notice of the branches and fronds catching at her coloful mane and tail as she stared towards . . . something. "We're getting close," she whispered.

"Close to what?" Baby Nightglow asked for what felt like the hundreth time. "Baby Featherfall? Close to what?" She didn't even turn her head. Baby Nightglow wondered if she had even heard him. _I wish we'd never gone into this stupid forest. What's happening to her?_ With a sigh, he ducked under a broad, red-veined leaf--and stumbled right into Baby Featherfall as she stood in contemplation. Both foals went down in a tangle.

"Ow! Baby Nightglow!" She awkwardly extricated herself.

"Sorry." He pulled himself to his hooves. "Uh . . . why did you stop all of a sudden? Did you find whatever we're looking for?" 

"Maybe . . ." she answered slowly. 

She moved into a small clearing and as Baby Nightglow followed, he saw it: a perfect circle of water set in an unnaturally flat stone that lay level with the forest floor. Baby Nightglow _thought_ it was water, at least. It gleamed silver and opaque, seemingly _thicker_ than water, somehow. It seemed _more._ Both foals stared. Inconsequentially, the blue-maned colt noted the dust motes danced in the shafts of sunlight dodging between the leaves high above. He shook himself out of the stupor as Baby Featherfall took a step towards the pool.

"What is it?"

Baby Featherfall shook her head, sunlight glinting off her rainbow tresses. "I don't know. I think it used to be very important . . ."

"Well, is it important now?" Baby Nightglow's confidence began to return. Secretly, he had worried that Baby Featherfall was unknowingly leading them towards something really dangerous. "Do you think it's good to drink?"

"I don't know," the filly repeated, doubtfully lowering her head to examine the pool. No pony-reflection shone back at her, though the silver sheen glistened like starlight. Very cautiously she dabbled a hoof in the liquid, swirling it to create furrows and trails of silver. As she drew back her hoof, the silvery liquid beaded and reformed. "It's safe to touch, I guess."

"It's pretty." He drew his hoof along the surface as well. "We should stop and play for a while."

_"Play?_ Baby Nightglow, we're LOST!" The little Rainbow pony was beginning to sound like herself again.

He snorted. "Well, why _are_ we here then? Why did you lead us here?"

"I don't _know."_

"You don't know?? You led us who knows how many miles and every time I asked you what in the Rainbow you were doing, all you'd say is 'We're getting closer.'" He mimicked her voice. "Well, now we're _here_ and I want to know what we're supposed to _do!"_

Eyes narrowed and ears laid back, the filly spread her wings, emphatically beating them at each word: "I . . . DON'T . . . _KNOW!"_ She folded her wings back and landed with a thump, then strode to the other side of the pool and sat with her back to the other foal. 

Baby Nightglow hesitated before flying over to her. "How did you even know this was here?"

"I _didn't,"_ she replied, hastily scrubbing her eyes with a hoof. "I just felt . . . it was like something pulling me. Dragging me, almost. I couldn't stop. I couldn't turn away."

"That sounds awful," Baby Nightglow said slowly.

Baby Featherfall looked thoughtful. "Nooo, it wasn't bad. All I could think about was getting to . . . whatever it was, so it wasn't scary. But now that I'm here, I don't know where to go or what to do. _Now_ I'm scared."

Baby Nightglow extended a purple wing over her back in sympathy. "We'll be okay."

She sighed. "I feel like there's something calling to me more than ever, but I can't tell where. I wish my mommy were here."

"And I wish my daddy were here." Baby Nightglow's face clouded. 

"Well, if wishes were wings . . ." Baby Featherfall stood up and turned around. "It must have something to do with this pool."

"There are usually rocks and shells and things in a streambed; maybe there's something under here too, hidden." Baby Nightglow hovered above the basin of silver.

"Maybe," the filly replied doubtfully, flicking her rainbow tail.

"I'll check." He held his wings out, slowly descending towards the shimmering liquid.

"Baby Nightglow, I don't know if that such a good id--"

The pool pulled him down and the world cracked around him. Crackling swirls of pure power spun around him, now flashing light, now dark. The abyss constricted, enveloping him, blinding him, but before he even had a chance to scream, a dizzy swaying of greenery appeared above him. _Darn, I'm upside down,_ he thought semicoherently just before landing hard on his back.

"Ouch!" he exclaimed loudly. His cry died a little too quickly on a shroud of silence. He could hear every scrape of hooves against stone as he got to his feet. "I'm in the same place as before," he murmured in confusion. "There's those big mossy stones and there's the pool only . . . Baby Featherfall?" He turned in a tight circle as his call once again faded into the forest a little too soon. The Rainbow pony was nowhere in sight.

"Baby Featherfall!" he called again, louder, and his hooves clattered against the silence as he galloped across the strange, smooth stone surrounding the pool. He spread his wings, flapping hard against the muggy stillness of the forest. Spiralling, he scanned the ground with growing anxiety. 

Nothing stirred. The spears of sunlight darted through the trees, clear and whole.

Baby Nightglow landed by the pool, on the far side where he had last seen his friend. "FEATHERFAAAALL!! . . . please, Rainbow, don't let me be lost all alone . . . BABY FEATHERFALL, WHERE ARE YOU??" 

His ears caught the faintest of sounds. He turned to see the silvery pond ripple once. Then twice. He gaped in astonishment as a pink hoof emerged, flailing. Struggling wildly, Baby Featherfall fell out of the pool as streamlets of silver poured down her mane and tail to rejoin the pool. Baby Nightglow blinked and rubbed a hoof over his eyes. It was as if she were being hurled upward from the pool (upside down) and falling from a great height (towards the sky) at the same time. Her momentum slowed and it seemed she would plummet to the ground after all . . . but she squeezed her eyes tightly and began drifting gently. A twist of her wings righted her and she landed neatly. 

"Your magic saved you from the landing _I_ got," Baby Nightglow said, beginning to understand.

Baby Featherfall turned towards him with relief. "So you _are_ here!" she exclaimed. "And . . . and . . . something else is here too. Something I have to find . . ." Her eyes glazed over.

"Oh _no,_ not again! Baby Featherfall--" he trotted after her. "Wait! We need to figure out what's going on! I know this forest looks just like where we were, but I think it's different, and--Hey, wait up!"

Heedlessly, recklessly, she galloped full out, skillfully dodging treetrunks. She could feel it pulling . . . pulling her along. Somewhere very near, it waited . . . Her hooves were a blur of motion. Over a stream, under a log . . . The world raced by her and she only skidded to a stop when she reached the shore of the lake. 

Somehow she had known it would be there. She could only see the nearest whitecaps as great bands of fog swirled and circled over the surface of the lake like a whirlpool, but instinctively she felt its enormity. The surf roared as it hammered the beach and the wind whistled shrilly as it curled protectively over the lake, dragging banners of mist behind it. The water was not blue or turquoise, but a deep, deep color just off of black, disturbed only by frothing waves stuggling to free themselves. 

The filly had a hard time taking in the scenery, though. Her entire being was focused on one goal. "To get to the center . . . yes," she murmured.

"The center? Of _that?"_

Baby Featherfall glanced behind her, vaguely recalling her purple traveling companion. "To the center . . . it calls." Wave-worn stones and seashells clicked and crunched under her hooves as she strode towards the shore; breakers flung themselves between her feet before retreating, pulling the rounded pebbles into the depths of the lake with a rattling grate. She could hear the purple colt calling her, entreating her to come back, but she didn't take any notice. She spread her wings, leapt towards the whirling fog--

--and came to a sudden stop as Baby Nightglow grabbed her tail. "Are you _cwazy?"_ he asked around a mouthfull of rainbow hair. "Tha's _dang'rous!"_

"Baby--" She shook her head, trying to clear her mind. "Baby Nightglow, let go of my tail!"

"Nuh-_uh!"_ He shook his head, rearing onto his hind legs and pulling her further back. 

Baby Featherfall's ears went back. "I have to go to the center! You don't understand! I _have to!"_ She flapped hard, pulling Baby Nightglow over the beach as he lost his footing. Each stroke of her wings drew her closer . . . closer . . . and a sudden gust pulled both foals into the whirlwind.

Baby Featherfall determinedly beat against the storm, trying to plunge deeper into the fog, towards the center. Baby Nightglow, maintaining his grip on the little Rainbow pony's tail, desparately tried to pull her in the direction he thought was shoreward. But both ponies were tossed and buffeted by the shrieking wind, helpless against its rage. 

The purple pegasus now fluttered blindly, disoreinted and confused but still clenching his teeth around Baby Featherfall's tail. The wind screamed, tearing at his feathers as he tried in vain to control his flight. The gale toyed with him, twisting him this way and that, occassionally sending sudden gusts that slammed him into Baby Featherfall or yanked him away from her until his jaw ached. _I don't care. I WON'T let go!_ he thought stubbornly, pressing his teeth together until he thought they would meld. 

As if sensing a challenge, a howling blast sent him somersaulting backwards before catching under his wings and slamming him down, down, down, pulling the Rainbow pegasus after him. Baby Nightglow tried to shift his wings and found that the wind had pinned them back. He fought valiantly against his invisible foe and had almost escaped by the time he hit the water.

The colt gasped with shock at the cold, then realized his mistake as waves closed in above him. He struggled to the surface, frantically looking around for the pink pegasus. "Featherfa--glug!" He swallowed a mouthful of water as a breaker crashed over his head. He tried to shove his sodden blue forelock out of his eyes and tread water at the same time. The mist swirling above and waves rising around him filled his vision.

_She must be here somewhere. She has to be._ He craned his neck, trying to see above the swells of the lake. The biggest whitecaps flung stinging sprays of water into his eyes as he winced away. He lunged upward, trying to fly, but his wings felt as heavy as stone, as they were soaked through. 

"Baby Featherfall!" he called again. He strained his ears against the crashing waves and whining wind. Had someone called from over there or was it his imagination? "I'm coming, don't wo--" A wave washed over him. "--don't worry!" His legs churned through the surf, creating trails of frothing bubbles. As the billowing waves rose and sunk, he caught a glimpse of something pink. _Getting close,_ he thought with renewed hope, redoubling his effort. 

His thought was interrupted as a powerful current snared his hind legs and pulled him down. It rolled him, sucking him deeper and deeper into the depths of the lake as he fought desparately, kicking with all his might. He watched the air bubbles floating past him as he struggled against the water that unceasingly pressed against him from all sides. _Must . . . keep . . . fighting._ He was tired. So very tired. If only he could rest . . . _NO! I have to . . . I have to . . ._ He couldn't remember what he had to do. Surely it could wait. Now was the time to rest . . . sleep . . .

The currents tearing at his limbs seemed almost gentle now and the water muffled the chaos of the storm above. He went limp, falling into a darkness blacker than a moonless night.

~*~*~*~*~ 

The voice echoed faintly in the distance, far, far away beyond the darkened stars. Insistently it murmured indistinguishable words that he vainly strained to understand. "What?" he cried. "What?"

"I _said_ are you all right?" 

The darkness receded slowly; with sudden urgentness he coughed, expelling a stream of lake water. He snorted, trying to banish the smell from his nostrils. "Featherfall?" he managed. As he lifted his head, trickles of icy water crawled from his mane. "Is that you?" 

The Rainbow foal nodded. She looked just as waterlogged as the purple pegasus, with flakes of sand and grit flecking her coat and driblets of lakewater staining her muzzle. 

Baby Nightglow pushed himself to his hooves with some difficulty; he was sure he'd slosh when he tried to walk. "You pulled me out, didn't you? You rescued me." 

"After leading you into danger in the first place," she mumbled, hanging her head. "I'm sorry, Baby Nightglow. I just--it was _calling me._ But--but that's no excuse." She scuffed a hoof on the loose lying rocks.

"Uh. Well . . ." Baby Nightglow shifted uncomfortably at this confession. "You wanted to stay out of the woods to begin with and I said we should go in, so it's my fault too."

She raised her head, eyes flashing. "But I'm a _Rainbow pony!_ I have to _protect and serve!_ I shouldn't have forgotten that, not for a minute, no matter what!"

"Is that what Rainbow ponies do?" It sounded adventurous. Some ponies had all the luck. He glanced around the lake shore. "Hey, where's that pool? We should get back to that other forest."

"I think it's that direction," Baby Featherfall pointed. "I hope it works both ways."

"Me too," the colt sighed. Slowly he began walking towards the still, ageless trees, feeling every ache and bruise on his body. Baby Featherfall kept pace with him, fluttering her beraggled wings to dry them more quickly. Once in a while she stole a glance over her shoulder.

"Can you still feel it?" he asked her. "Calling?" 

She nodded and they walked on in silence.

Finally--after wandering through the woods for so long that it seemed they would be lost forever--they stumbled upon the strange, glistening pool. 

"We made it!" Baby Nightglow exclaimed, rearing with excitement. 

"Yes . . ." Baby Featherfall said. She looked a little bit lost as she cast one more look behind her, into the still, dim forest. Then she firmly stepped towards the pool. "Come on," she said. 

The foals leapt forward together, their hooves not so much splashing into the quicksilver as sinking _into_ it, _through_ it . . . 

The world cracked. The silence screamed. The darkness blazed.

Suddenly, dust motes danced against a pale beam of sunlight . . . 

Both ponies drifted to the ground, aided by Baby Featherfall's magic. They sighed in relief, then tensed.

"This . . . this isn't the same forest!" Baby Nightglow stammered. Rough-barked pine trees stretched to the sky and a carpet of dry-rooted flowers scraggled around them. 

"Maybe if we go back through the pool--" They turned. The crumbling pool was filled with water. Clear, regular water. Baby Nightglow tentatively waded in anyway. Nothing happened.

"Well, we might as well get a drink while we're here," the Rainbow pony said.

"Yeah, before our feathers singe." Baby Nightglow looked around, muzzle dripping. "Well . . . I've seen forests like this before, at least."

"Me too. But we never went through them 'cause it would be too hard to keep the herd together."

The colt sighed. "I hope they're nearby . . ." Baby Featherfall nodded. "There's no turning back." 


	6. Auld Acquaintance

The foals trotted away from the strange pool, craning their necks for any familiar landmark.

"Which way should we go?" the purple colt said uneasily. "I wish the trees didn't block out the sun so much."

"Nothing lasts forever. No matter which way we go, we'll get out of the forest sooner or later," Baby Featherfall pointed out, "and then maybe we'll be able to find our way back to the herd."

"Well, I'm going to fly up and take a look around," Baby Nightglow said, his words sounding more bold than he felt. He could fly well for short distances and even do fancy manuevers like loops and quick turns if the wind was right--and if he was lucky. But once he got among the treetops here, it would be a long way up . . . and a long way down.

"No, _I'll_ go," Baby Featherfall said suddenly.

"What? I'm a better flier than you are!"

"But if _I_ fall, I can drift to the ground," the filly pointed out. "Besides, Rainbow ponies have to be brave. To protect--"

"And serve," Baby Nightglow scowled. "Okay, okay, I'll wait here." 

He watched the pink pegasus spread her wings as she took a running start, flapping her wings so hard that they were just a blurr. Awkwardly she pushed herself up on the still, dry air of the forest, steadily flapping. Baby Nightglow tensed as she angled dangerously near the tree trunks. 

At last she rested on a thick branch before struggling up the final few spans, the hovering above the highest treetop, barely visible from the ground. Baby Nightglow shifted his dark purple hooves, ready to fly after her if necessary, but a few minutes later she flew back, floating down gently as a leaf in her faint swirls of magic.

"It's farther up than it looks" were her first words. 

"What did you see?"

She thoughtfully tilted her head to one side, gazing at the ponderosa pines. "There's forest for as far as I can see . . . And I caught a glimpse of blue . . . there's a lake," she continued slowly. 

Baby Nightglow stared at her.

"It looks a lot like the lake in . . . that other place . . . only without the mist and wind," she said.

_"Another_ lake?" He frowned. "Do you think we should go to it?"

"I don't know," she admitted. "This time there's nothing calling . . . But not the lake. Not _this_ lake."

"Well, let's go there," he said. "We can get a good drink and figure out what to do next."

Baby Featherfall nodded. "This way, then." 

She trotted along with Baby Nightglow laboriously flying behind her, just to prove that he _could_ fly. After a short time the forest began to thin out and a cool breeze ruffled the ponies' manes. A lake sparkled before them, only shaded along the shore by the overhanging willows, drawing relief from the sun at the foot of the water. 

Baby Nightglow stepped onto the beach, watching his hooves sink slightly in the yellow sand. Nearer to the lake, the sand was gold, darkened by the waves crawling up and slinking back. Baby Featherfall stood with the water curling around her hooves, gazing at the sand glittering in turbulence around her. She moved her feet a little, splashing, beforet taking a long drink. 

"The water's good," she announced with a dripping muzzle. 

"What should we do now?" Baby Nightglow asked after he had drunk his fill.

Baby Featherfall sat on her haunches and considered. "We'll go around the lake," she said at last. "It would be good if we could find a river connected to it."

"Then we wouldn't have to worry about getting water while we travel," Baby Nightglow nodded. _But how will we know which way to go?_

As Baby Featherfall started walking, the purple colt hesitated. "Wait a minute!" he called. He carefully picked up a few rocks and set them together on the beach so they formed a perfectly straight line. "Now we'll know when we get back to this point," he explained to Featherfall, who was staring.

She shook her head. "You have strange ideas, Nightglow."

He shrugged, half-smiling. "Sometimes strange works."

Side by side they began following the shoreline, wading in the shallows and splashing each other. After their experiences, the lake seemed blessedly _normal_ . . . and they were both foals, after all.

The sandy shallows eventually fell away to underwater drop-offs, ominously deep, and the babies contented themselves with fluttering or running along the shore. "We don't want to get our wings wet," Baby Featherfall said as they trotted over a small, rolling rise of sand.

"Right," Baby Nightglow agreed. "That would be--" He interrupted himself with a gasp. 

Baby Featherfall turned her head sharply to see the cause for alarm . . . and froze in disbelief. "It can't be," she whispered. 

Her friend wasted no time on disbelief. In a trice, the colt was tumbling down the sand dune, digging furrows with his outstretched hooves as he rushed towards it--the last thing he had expected to see here.

Despite the glare of the setting sun, he could clearly see the silouhette of the equine head, the pricked ears and damped-down mane hanging in tendrils around her face as she gazed across to the opposite shore. Eight or nine spans from the shore, the sun-gilded water gently lapped around her neck as she stared into the sunset, almost mesmerized. Too excited to shout, Baby Nightglow floundered for his footing in the shifting sand with Baby Featherfall close behind him. _Blue with blue hair? Oh Rainbow, if she's here, the herd must be close! Yeah!_

He skidded to a stop at the water's edge so suddenly that Baby Featherfall nearly stumbled into him. "Azure, it's us! Where's the herd? Can you take us to them? I can't believe we finally found you!" 

"Are they nearby?" Baby Featherfall put in, right on top of the colt's comments.

Hearing the commotion, the other pony swiveled at incredible speed. Even treading deep water, her head barely bobbed as she stared at them. 

Baby Nightglow took a step back, shocked. "That's not--"

The words caught in his throat as the creature slowly rose, pushing itself out of the water with slashing, white-streaked fins. Gills on either side of the neck closed tightly, then slitted outward, then closed again in steady rhythm while blank, slightly bulging lavender eyes examined them. With a sudden flip and a spray of lakewater, the . . . _thing_ . . . was gone. 

Baby Nightglow took a deep breath as he glimpsed a long, eel-like tail disappearing beneath the waves. 

Baby Featherfall could only shake her head incredulously. Then her eyes widened. "Look." she whispered.

Baby Nightglow took a step back as he caught the glimpse of dark forms gliding under the water, half-hidden by the last reddened slants of sunlight edging the waves. With a spray of foam, they burst to the surface--three of them. The blue fish-pony--that was how Baby Nightglow thought of them--the one he had mistaken for Azure, hung back with an air of caution, ready to dive away in a flash. The bolder ones bobbed only a few spans away, one of them also blue, but with yellow hair and the other white with lavender hair streaked with blue. The yellow-haired one clacked its jaws a few times, revealing rows of tiny, sharp teeth, as it stared intently at the foals. "Who you, fry?" it demanded in a voice that gurgled and slurred. 

Baby Featherfall and Baby Nightglow gasped in unison. "You can talk!" the colt exclaimed.

"Me talk," the water creature agreed. "Who you?"

"I'm, uh, Baby Nightglow." He glanced at his friend.

The pink foal frowned. "I think you should tell us who _you_ are."

"Me . . . Surf-dan-cer." Suddenly, the it ducked its head underwater, surfacing just as quickly with water pouring over its gills. "You . . ." it flipped a purple-veined flipper towards Baby Featherfall. "You Rainbow pony, fry?"

"Yes," was the simple reply. "What's a 'fry'?" 

Surfdancer bared tiny, peg-like teeth in a smile while leaning back on the waves, studying the pink pegasus. "Long ago . . . we meet land pony, shore pony . . . she say . . . 'Rainbow ponies help. Help all.'"

"We protect and serve all ponies," Baby Featherfall said, putting a slight emphasis on "ponies".

"You help us, then?" Surfdancer leaned forward, focusing on the baby pony with sharp green eyes.

Baby Nightglow had already opened his mouth to agree when Baby Featherfall fluffed her wings and calmly said, "Why should we?" 

Surfdancer's eyes narrowed. "Rainbow ponies help."

"If we don't find our herd again, you might be the last ones we--I--help," Baby Featherfall countered. "Rainbow ponies have to think about that too, you know."

Surfdancer snorted, displeased, and briefly ducked underwater again before turning towards the bobbing white water-pony. The foals exchanged amazed glances at the rushing flow of sounds burbling between the two. At last they fell silent, speculatively gazing at Baby Featherfall; she met their eyes calmly, never twitching a feather.

"You help us, we help you. Good enough, fry?"

"I'm no 'fry'; I'm a Rainbow pony." 

The purple-maned water-pony glanced at Surfdancer, an inquisitive noise trickling from its throat. Surfdancer grinned, making an equally unintelligible reply. The baby pegasi started as both sea creatures broke into chorus of harsh barking. 

_Laughing?_ Baby Nightglow thought incredulously. _Surely not._

"Yes, you Rainbow pony." At last Surfdancer focused on the baby pony again, but a grin seemed to want to slide across that streamlined blue face. "You help us, then Waverider--" a flipper waved in the direction of the white water-pony "she talk to fish, find your school." Surfdancer frowned slightly. "Herd."

"That sounds good," Baby Featherfall agreed, and only the slight quiver of her wingtips betrayed her excitement. "What do you need?"

"Not much," Surfdancer assured them. "Just carry . . . words. Message."

"Where to?" Baby Nightglow put in.

The blue pony looked at him with something like reproach before addressing its words to Baby Featherfall. "Not far. Towards sinking sun . . . another lake. Not far for ponies with . . ." The water-pony energetically flipped its fins back and forth. 

"Wings?" guessed the colt.

"Not far for ponies with wings," Surfdancer continued, not sending a flicker of a glance towards Baby Nightglow. "For us, far."

"Who do we take the message to?" Baby Featherfall asked as her friend scowled. 

"You take message to sea mage . . . That all. She tell others." 

"Tell the others what? What others?" Baby Nightglow interrupted, but Surfdancer was again diving underwater . . . without resurfacing, this time. An uncomfortable silence stretched across the lake as the pegasi and the two remaining water-ponies stared at each other. But with a sudden splash, Surfdancer returned. Baby Nightglow squinted, trying to see what was clasped in the blue jaws. Something small . . . something that shimmered. 

"Take this," Surfdancer spoke awkwardly around the object before sending it tumbling towards the shore. Baby Featherfall dove, twisting her wings sharply, the tips of her hooves furrowing the lake's skin as she caught the shape that glimmered in the twilight.

"A shell," Baby Nightglow observed as the pink foal landed and spat out her prize. ("It tastes like seaweed," she murmured, grimacing expressively.) "I've never seen one this shiny."

"It's like starlight caught in a seashell," Baby Featherfall agreed, scrubbing a hoof across her mouth. 

"You throw shell in lake, mage come," Surfdancer explained. "You give her message."

"What message?"

Surfdancer glanced into the deepening shadows before whispering, "Something comes . . . I not know your word for it, land pony. But something comes . . . something big. Something bad. It smell like death."

The foals drew closer together. "That--that's the message?" Baby Featherfall asked, and to her credit her voice hardly trembled.

Surfdancer sighed, a sound echoed by the waves pulling against the sandy beach. "Yes. But it not enough that you know the message . . . must understand message."

"I understand." Baby Featherfall straightened a little, proudly arching her neck. "Something big and . . . and bad is coming."

Surfdancer snorted. "Not enough." The water-pony flipped its fins back and forth thoughtfully. "You see fishing birds, fry? Big birds with . . . wings . . . big as yours. More big, maybe. They cut through sky, they watch, they dive."

"Eagles? Why would we need to warn anyone about--"

"You _listen,_ fry! You look at . . . eagle . . . and at fish--trout, maybe. Eagle is more big, right?" 

"Well, an eagle would have to be bigger than a fish. How else would they carry them?" Baby Featherfall said reasonably.

Surfdancer eyed her with some amusement. "Fry know everything, of course. Some fish . . . Well, you right this time. Eagle more big than trout. MUCH more big." 

The foals exchanged puzzled glances. "Sooo . . ."

Moonshadows played along Surfdancer's sleek face as driblets of water fell from the tangled locks of beraggled yellow hair. "Say you see something in air, fry . . . something big, like eagle . . . but not." The water-pony rocked back and forth a little, seemingly addressing itself as much as the foals. "Maybe on dark night, far away, you see it fold back fins--wings--and dive, rip the lake with its claws, tear the water. But when it rises, what has this thing caught? Not trout, fry. Not salmon or chub. One of us. Maybe Waverider, maybe me. Billow. Last time, Billow." The water-pony snorted in anger. "To it, _we_ trout, fry. That is what you warn against."

"I . . . see," Baby Featherfall said slowly.

"Good," Surfdancer said calmly. "I tell you where you go--you follow river downstream. Not far for land pony."

Baby Featherfall thought of the "big, bad thing" lurking in the night sky and hoped it would be a very short journey indeed.


	7. The Sea Mage

It didn't take the foals long to discover the obstacle that made the journey so difficult for Surfdancer's kind. 

"Wow," Baby Nightglow breathed, staring upward as sheer sheets of water crashed over the rocks. The young filly also gazed at the waterfall, as it tossed wild bursts of water at the moon. Getting past the falls had been easy, since the land sloped gently on one side of the river. 

"It can't be far now," Baby Featherfall said, momentarily setting down the seashell.

"I'll bet we'll reach it soon," the purple colt agreed. "Baby Featherfall?" 

"Yeah?"

"Have you ever seen ponies like those?"

"Like what?"

"What do you mean 'like what'? Like Surfdancer and those other . . . those water-ponies."

Baby Featherfall snorted. "Those weren't ponies."

Her friend stared. "What do you mean? They _looked_ like ponies. Well . . . from the neck up, anyway."

"From the neck up?" Baby Featherfall looked at him. "What about the rest of them? They didn't even have _legs,_ Nightglow! And gills--ponies don't have gills!"

"Yeah, but . . ." the colt frowned. "They were so bright, just like us, and they could _talk_. Animals don't talk." He frowned again. "Except us."

"How could they be ponies if they don't look like ponies?" The Rainbow pony replied. "That's what _makes_ us ponies."

"Is it?" 

But the baby Rainbow pony sounded definite. "No, they weren't ponies . . . but they could help us find our way way back to the herd." Picking up the little seashell again, she began trotting downstream. "C'mon."

The night stretched on as they traveled by along the stream. As the sun peered over the eastern horizon, Baby Nightglow's ears perked up. "Look! There it is!"

"Hey, wai' up!" Baby Featherfall ran after him as he took to the air. In the valley in front of the foals, a vast lake unfolded, reflecting the misty sunrise. They gallopped eagerly down the grassy slopes to the water's edge.

"Here goes nothing," Baby Featherfall said. Drawing her head to one side, she picked up the glittering seashell and flung it towards the lake with a wild plunge of her head. It traced a perfect arc before disappearing with a small splash.

"What now?" Baby Nightglow asked after a minute or two. 

Baby Featherfall stared across the waves. "We wait, I guess."

The colt paced back and forth; the Rainbow pony just kept scanning the lake. Baby Nightglow was just about to suggest that they had ended up at the wrong lake when the water rippled. Both foals leaned back as something surfaced.

_Another water-pony,_ Baby Nightglow thought. Like Waverider this one was white, but with green hair containing a streak of turquoise blue.

"Are you the sea mage?" Baby Featherfall asked cautiously, slightly unnerved by the staring teal eyes. The water creature remained silent and still, only twitching thick-veined flipper now and again. The foals exchanged glances.

"Surfdancer sent us," Baby Featherfall said.

The teal eyes widened. "Shhuuuuurfff . . ." the water-pony replied in an awkward slur, as if mouthing an unfamiliar word. 

_::Surfdancer?::_

It was not quite a word, though it was vaguely attached to a sound . . . two sounds, one familiar and one a foreign bubbling. It was not quite an image either, though the appearance of a blue-skinned yellow-haired water-pony flashed for an instant. It was . . . both. Neither. A thought dredged from the depths of meaning. The baby ponies looked at each other in simultaneous wonder.

Baby Nightglow swung towards the sea mage. "Yes . . . Surfdancer! We have a message for you. Surfdancer said--"

_::Surfdancer?::_

The thought was a little more quizzical than before, perhaps a bit more persistant.

"She doesn't understand," Baby Nightglow said slowly. "I don't think she can talk like us--like Surfdancer."

"Then how can we give her the message?"

The purple pegasus tilted his head. "I don't know, unless . . ."

_::Who?::_ Undiluted thought and emotion . . . It was not actually "Who?" or "Who are you?" or "What are you?", but a little bit of each. _::Tell.::_

"If _she_ uses thoughts, maybe we can too," Baby Nightglow said, catching on. "She probably wouldn't be asking us if she knew we couldn't answer." His forehead wrinkled in concentration. Thoughts. Had to send thoughts. _Magic . . ._ he thought, and was surprised when the word echoed slightly.

Baby Featherfall looked at him dubiously, but then turned towards the sea mage, both thinking and speaking her greeting. _::Hello?::_

The white pony's smile stretched. _::You learn. Who?::_

The colt jumped in. "My name is Baby Nightglow and this is Baby Featherfall." But the water-pony looked confused . . .

"You're thinking in words, Nightglow. You have to think in . . . looser thoughts," Baby Featherfall said. "Watch." 

"Featherfall." Baby Featherfall sent an image of herself overlayed with the sound of her name and twisted around the meaning behind it--a feather, floating groundward. "Nightglow." She pictured her friend flying against a field of softly glowing stars.

_::You learn.::_ The sea mage sounded very pleased indeed. _::I am Reed Dancer. But why?::_

The Rainbow pony blinked, marshalling her thoughts. "Surfdancer sends you a message." 

_::Ahhh . . . What is his message?::_

The babies blinked at each other. "'His'?" Baby Nightglow said, surprised. 

"They all look the same to me," shrugged Baby Featherfall. She looked toward the water-pony again. "He said to tell you something's coming."

_::Something . . . coming?::_ sea mage looked perplexed and the filly knew that the concepts were too broad for her to fully grasp. 

"Something big, something bad . . ." Baby Featherfall said slowly, and when Reed Dancer still didn't react, she remembered what Surfdancer had said. "Not enough that you _know_ message . . ." 

The pink filly shut her eyes and pictured a lake lapping the shores on a night, a dark creeping night. Some water-ponies were bobbing in the waves--she gave them random colors. Suddenly, something swooped from the sky, dark and indefinite, but dangerous--there was a flash of claws, like the raals had, and an impression of vast, powerful wings. The water-ponies dove as its claws raked across the waves. Baby Featherfall could not bear to let the scene continue, even in her imagination; she left the image fade.

_::Leviathon!::_ hissed the sea mage, fury mixed with shock and fear. _::He rises!::_

The foals shivered under the weight of the word and Baby Nightglow stared fearfully at the sky.

_::Leviathon wakes . . . ::_ Reed Dancer repeated slowly. She drew herself proudly up from the waves. _::I thank you for your message, young one. We will rally our mages. We will claim Neptune's promise. The foe shall not find us defenseless.::_

She smoothed back her fins, preparing to dive.

"Wait!" Baby Featherfall said suddenly. 

Reed Dancer looked up. 

"What's a 'fry'?" the Rainbow pony asked. 

Reed Dancer frowned. "Frryyyy?"

"She only understands thoughts, remember?" Baby Nightglow said. 

"So she could only answer if we knew what it meant to begin with. I wonder if Surfdancer would tell us."

"No." guessed Baby Nightglow.

"No, I don't think so either," Baby Featherfall frowned. "Good luck," she added, glancing at the white water-pony. "Be careful."

_::Be careful,::_ echoed the sea mage. _::May the Rainbow be your cove.::_

The foals stared. "How do you know about the Rainbow?" Baby Featherfall said at last.

They jerked as Reed Dancer let out a harsh bark of laughter, a stark contrast to her smoothly shaped thoughts. _::What pony does not?::_

With a flip of her tail, she retreated beneath the waves.

* * *

Tired from their journey, they slept all day, and when the shadows grew dark and deep, each foal pretended that the other was still tired. Thus the journey back was delayed until the revealing light of mid-morning. 

The babies walked with a strange solemness. "I hope they can protect themselves okay." 

"They have mages, Reed Dancer said. Like unicorns, I guess." Baby Featherfall fell silent, thinking. "You were right, Nightglow. It's not what's on the outside that makes us ponies."

He nodded. "It's what's on the inside."

"No, it's not that either. It's not any thing about _us_ that makes us ponies." 

He frowned in puzzlement. "Then what?"

"Do you ever . . . do you ever feel like you're being called to be more than you _can_ be?"

"Sometimes, maybe," he said slowly. "Sometimes . . ."

"When we _hear_ the call," Featherfall sighed, "that's what makes us who we are."

"That's _kind of_ on the inside," Baby Nightglow ventured.

"It's not _from_ us."

"Where is it from, then?"

"Rainbow only knows."

"Rainbow knows," Baby Nightglow echoed. They continued walking.

* * *

The journey back was uphill and therefore slow. To make matters worse, they took a "shortcut" (a decision which each of them blamed the other for later) which left them hard-pressed to make their way back to a river which they could hear but not see. Both Featherfall and Baby Nightglow had plowed through more scratch-limbed shrubs and brittle branch-made lattices than they cared to admit by the time they finally returned to Surfdancer's lake.

"So . . . how do we let Surfdancer know we're back?" Baby Nightglow asked as he plopped down on the shore, exhausted. In the deep of night, the lake was a inky pool ridged with moonlight.

"We should've asked Reed Dancer for one of those shells," Baby Featherfall frowned.

"But we didn't," the colt reminded her, blowing his forelock out of his eyes. He glanced at the shifting surface of the lake for a moment, then bellowed, "SUUUUUUUURF-DAAAAAAAANCER!!!"

_"Ow!_ Nightglow--" The pink filly scowled and rubbed a forehoof over her ears.

"It's worth a try!" Nightglow said defensively. "If we can't find him, how can he help us? How can we get _home?"_

"Maybe he isn't going to help us." Featherfall sat beside the purple foal, her wings drooping. "Maybe he never was."

"No! He just doesn't know we're here!" Baby Nightglow insisted, but he felt a flutter of fear in the pit of his stomach. Could they really trust ponies who looked like fish? Who breathed water like fish? Tempest had once told him about fish big enough to eat ponies, even _adult_ ponies, and Surfdancer had sharp teeth . . . "No!" he repeated, more to himself than to Featherfall. "He _will_ help us if we can just make him know we're here!"

"Well, what we need is one of those sparkly shells then," repeated Baby Featherfall, ever the pragmatist.

"Yeah . . . maybe if we look real hard . . ."

The began scouring the ground, squinting through the darkness to examine each rounded stone and broken bit of seashell that they dug out of the wet sand. Baby Nightglow pulled away a soggy snarl of seaweed and paused to make a face before examining the (somewhat slimy) stones beneath it.

"How did Reed Dancer know?" he asked suddenly.

Baby Featherfall looked up. "How did she know _what?"_

"That we were there."

"We threw in the seashell, silly. Remember?"

"But it was barely dawn," the the purple foal persisted. "How could she see it? How could she _know?"_

"Who _cares?_ Does it matter?"

"Probably not."

The shifted through the wave-tossed debris for a bit, but Baby Nightglow kept thinking. They had gone to the lake, thrown in the shell, and . . .

"Ripples." Baby Nightglow straightened so suddenly that his back hooves slipped from under him and he sat down abruptly. He didn't care. "That's gotta be it! It's not the shell _at all_, it's the ripples it makes! All we have to do--"

"So the water-ponies just sit around all day waiting for stuff to fall in the water?" the Rainbow pony said doubtfully. "What about when it _rains,_ Nightglow? Nightglow?"

The colt didn't answer as he grabbed a mouthful of pebbles and tossed them into the lake with a sharp jerk of his head. The rocks plopped gently into the water, leaving rings of tiny concentric waves in their wake. The purple colt fixed his eyes on them as they slowly rippled outwards, spreading . . . and weakening . . . 

"Nothing's happening," Baby Featherfall said after a few minutes.

The blue-haired colt flew in a nervous circle. "I . . . I was _sure . . ."_

Baby Featherfall stood up. "If you're right . . . I think we need to be closer to the middle of the lake. And we need one more thing."

"What's that?" Nightglow asked, following her.

"A bigger stone."


	8. Danger Above

In the end, the problem was not finding a larger stone, but rather thinking of a way to get it to the middle of the lake. 

"There's _gotta_ be a better way," Baby Nightglow grumbled as his friend carefully wrapped his tail around a wave-smoothed rock. 

"It was _your_ idea," Baby Featherfall pointed out. 

"But I didn't think we'd be using MY tail!" 

"Yours is longer. Now stand up . . . slowly." She gripped her teeth around the end of Nightglow's blue tail. 

Baby Nightglow obeyed, rising with care. With the rock bundled neatly in the tresses of his tail and Baby Featherfall holding the whole thing in place, they were ready to put their plan into action. "This'd better work," the purple pegasus muttered. "Or I'm going to feel really silly." 

"Su'prised y' don' feel silly 'ready," Baby Featherfall said around a mouthful of blue hair. "'re y' ready?" 

"Yeah . . . let's do it!" He opened his wings and began flapping, and Baby Featherfall did the same. Flying was awkward with the stone weighing down the colt and the pegasi occassionally colliding in midair, but after some tricky maneuvering and several false starts, they managed to make it to the middle of the lake with the stone. 

Baby Nightglow's wings were pumping hard to keep him aloft with the extra weight. His tail felt like it might fall right off. He gazed down at the inky water stretching below him and repressed a shiver. 

"I think this spot looks good, don't you?" He felt rather than saw Baby Featherfall's nod of agreement. He was just about to suggest dropping the stone drop on the count of three when abruptly the support on his tail was gone and the filly was wheeling away in a flurry of pink feathers. 

The purple colt let out a yelp of surprise as the weight of the rock pulled him towards the lake . . . but each beat of his wings pulled him higher while simultaneously jerking another wrap of his tail from around the rock. At last it pulled free, pulling only a few tangled purple hairs with it. Baby Nightglow managed to turn himself around just in time to see the rock hit the water. The surface of the lake seemed to explode and both pegasi winced away as a spray of water washed over them. 

"Well . . . now what?" Baby Featherfall asked, shaking beads of water from her wings. (Fortunately, they were not wet enough to hinder her flight.) 

"We wait and see if it worked, I guess." Baby Nightglow looked down at the surface of the lake rippling in the moonlight. 

They watched anxiously as the surface of the water slowly smoothed itself out, coaxing the concentric ripples down. Even then, Baby Nightglow didn't move; he just kept staring at the dark water swaying under the moonlight and hoping. Hoping against hope. 

"Come on," Baby Featherfall said at last, getting up. 

"But--" The purple colt looked from her to the lake and back again. 

"Come _on,_ Nightglow. No one's coming. We're on our own." 

"I guess . . . I suppose you're right." He rose slowly to his hooves, not quite able to believe that they were on their own again, and turned silently to draw in one more view of the lake stretching in front of him. The last ripples from the plummeting stone were drifting slowly away, barely visible . . . or were they? He swung over the lake, hovering, and as he watched, the tiny waves seemed to grow stronger, larger, framing a rapidly darkening spot beneath the water . . . 

Surfdancer broke the surface in a burst of spray, his wet stringy mane tossed around him all pale in the moonlight. _"What you DOING, fry??"_ His voice was high and frantic. "Why you HERE?? Go! Go!" 

Baby Nightglow flapped his wings twice, backing away in surprise and confusion. "But . . . what . . ." 

"What do you _mean_ why are we here?" broke in Baby Featherfall, who had flown over as soon as Surfdancer appeared. "We had a _deal._ You said if we took a message to your friend--which we _did_--you'd help us find our way home!" 

"Silly, stupid fry!" Surfdancer hissed. "Already _done!"_

"What??" Baby Nightglow gasped, too excited to care about the insult. "You've found them already??" He looked at Featherfall. Her eyes were wide and she was trembling with hope. 

"Of course not found them _yet."_ Surfdancer snorted and ducked his head underwater briefly, rising with rivulets of water pouring over his gills. "Waverider talk to fish. Fish tell you when they find herd. Nothing more to do here. Go away!" 

"How are we supposed to talk to fish? We can't understand them like you!" Baby Nightglow said, trying to hide his disappointment. 

"Me not talk to fish either, fry," Surfdancer said in a martyred tone, speaking slowly as if that were the only way anyone so dense could possibly understand him. "Me not sea mage. Only Waverider talk to fish." 

"But then . . ." 

"Waverider talk to fish, send fish upriver, they find herd. Ponies need water, even land ponies. When fish find them, they find _you._ But for now, you GO!" He gestured with his fins, splashing water towards them. 

"What's the hurry?" Baby Featherfall asked. "How will we know when the fish have found--" 

"You know when time is here. Silly little fry, out in the open! We bury ourselves in mud, sleep long time--when land ponies not _waking us,"_ he said reproachfully. "And why, you think? Bad things." His voice lowered to a barely audible hiss. "Bad things come." 

"B-bad things?" Baby Nightglow said querolously. "Like you talked about b-before?" 

Before the water-pony could answer a terrific BOOM echoed across the western sky. The water trembled as the baby ponies leapt up a foot in midair, startled. 

"Thunder," Baby Nightglow said. "Just thunder . . ." 

"Baby Nightglow," the Rainbow pony said, "there aren't any clouds." 

"It comes," Surfdancer said sharply. "Flee." And he dove backwards, disappearing beneath the water with a flip of his eel-like tail. 

Baby Nightglow and Baby Featherfall hovered for a moment, frozen except for their flapping wings, before exchanging a glance of pure terror and lighting towards the shore as fast as their small wings could carry them. 

BOOM! Behind and above them. BOOM! The lake trembled. And they flew. They flew. 

Baby Nightglow broke through the first scraggle of weak-limbed trees, pushing his way to the interior of the forest as branches slapped at him. Featherfall was on his heels, no longer flying but leaping over rock and log, hooves moving together so swiftly, so neatly that only her eyes spoke of fear. 

BOOM! 

"We can't outrun it," she said as she pulled up to the purple colt, matching his mid-air stride. 

"We _have to!"_ Baby Nightglow cried, redoubling the sweeps of his immature wings. The ground rose suddenly in a hill of lichen and loose rock, and he found himself running and flying at the same time. 

BOOM! 

"Nightglow, no! Wait!" She snatched at his tail but missed. But the next instant, the world around him slowed as he pushed through air that thickened and jelled around him. In quarter-time, he saw his hoof slip, and a moment later time relaxed as he tripped and sprawled. 

"That was . . . was that _you?"_ he demanded, half amazed, half angry. 

"Yes . . . I've never used my power that way before, but . . . yes. Nightglow, _we can't outrun it."_

"Then _what?"_ He wanted to laugh. He wanted to cry. They were going to die here, on this hill, and they wouldn't even know what did it. Where were his parents? 

"I don't know," Baby Featherfall said, sounding close to tears herself. Then she stared at the sky and whispered, "Look." 

Baby Nightglow half-reared, his forehooves pawing heavenward. The stars gleamed down, clear and careless, casting their cold light over the shuddering forest. Only . . . a strange darkness engulfed a third of the heavenly bodies, which flashed and disappeared before his eyes in great patches of void before wheeling into view again. Clouds? But clouds never fleeted so swiftly as _that_. 

A sudden flare of green light spewed from the sky, a torrent that poured forth too viscous to be flame, too liquid to be solid. Across the lake, across the shore, the land sizzled and hissed beneath it, trees wavering and melting in the emerald glow as they toppled. As they died. 

Then with a sudden flicker, there was only darkness. Silence fell, broken only by the sky cracking with cloudless thunder. The stars came and went, matching the steady tattoo, but Baby Nightglow could hardly see them with the green afterimage still flaring in his eyes. 

_We should run. We need to run,_ he thought, but the two foals stood gazing stupidly across the lake, waiting. 

BOOM! The stars flashed. BOOM! The rhythm reminded him of something, but he couldn't think what.

Something was moving. Baby Nightglow's throat clenched. Something in front of them, on the shore, was moving towards them, running towards them. His feathers quivered as he prepared to leap away from whatever was charging out of the night--

"Deer," Baby Featherfall whispered. "It's just a deer." 

The colt almost sank to his knees in relief. Yes, the Rainbow pony was right, it was just a doe leaping along the shore, spooked out of the woods by the fire and the thunder. He could just make out her wide, wild eyes as she leapt along the stony shore, her cloven hooves moving together two-on-two and her tail raised and brushed in fear. She wasn't far away now, maybe thirty feet, and in a few seconds she would be racing past them, into the woods--

This time he heard a soft hiss and smelled a strange, acrid scent before the sky spewed forth the river of green, flameless fire. It bit into the lake, separating the water into rolling walls on either side, lit by a sickly green glow. But it was beautiful, in a way, when it hit the shore, leaping and rolling across the wave-lapped stones faster than thought. The rush of green fire flared no more than ten feet from the colt, and though his eyes burned he didn't feel the faintest flash of heat as the afterglow highlighted his wings. The doe saw the flood of fire coming and twisted to leap away. She did not make a sound when it engulfed her. Through licks of verdant, her body reared and jerked in a strange, ungainly dance, sizzling as her skin fell away layer on layer until there was only a dancing skeleton topped by skull with flaring eyesockets cavorting in her impromptu pyre. And then even those were gone. 

The light abruptly died. Darkness once more. 

Baby Nightglow stared at the place where the deer's body wasn't and the rocks that had melted into a solid, stretching mass and he finally remembered what the booming rhythm reminded him of, as it ate at the stars. 

Beating wings. 

He didn't look up. He didn't look at Baby Featherfall. He stared straight down, not daring to twitch a feather, as he listened the sky shudder. With each beat of cloudless thunder, his mane stirred. 

BOOM! BOOM! 

Echoing, hovering. 

BOOM! BOOM! 

Like it was waiting. 

BOOM! BOOM! 

But now it was fainter. 

boom! boom! 

And still he dared not look. 

A sound filled the air, not quite a roar, not quite a cry. Not a howl of rage, nor of anger, but scream of triumph as something vast and dark swept over the lake. From the corner of his eye, Baby Nightglow had a fleeting impression of massive claws tearing at the tumultuous lake as the Something swung by. Then with a snap that tore the air, it spiraled towards the stars. 

The foals stood stockstill for a long time, barely breathing, until the last flashes of green lightning faded from the western sky. 

At last Baby Nightglow faltered, "What . . . what was--?" 

"I hope we never find out," Baby Featherfall whispered. 

And shivering, they ran. 


End file.
